Composting

Composting cuts down on your household garbage by recycling organic materials. If you’re composting kitchen and yard waste in addition to recycling newspaper, bottles and cans, you’re cutting your waste down by 50% or more. If all your neighbors did this too, it would dramatically reduce the amount of household garbage thats choking up landfill sites.

Composting is Mother Nature’s way of recycling, by transforming natural nutrients of waste organic matter into useable nutrition for your garden. One third or more household garbage can be composted. Garden waste such as fallen leaves, grass clippings, weeds before they seed, and the remains of garden plants make excellent compost.

The best way to get into composting is to develop habits, much like we have developed habits for recycling. (Oh, and don’t forget to buy a composting bin or worm farm from your local hardware store). Separate your kitchen scraps such as fruit, vegetable peels and trimmings, egg shells, coffee grounds and filters, and tea bags. It’s not recommended composting meat, bones or fatty foods such as cheese, salad dressing or leftover cooking oil, as they may attract pests. Don’t put in citrus peelings or onion skins in your worm farms, they hate it. (Though worms will eat citrus peels eventually).

There are many resources on the net for the do’s and don’ts of composting. Worm farms can be fun, and the kids love it. But best of all is the significantly reduced garbage, and that warm fuzzy feeling you get from the most effective recycling.