Food Doesn’t Just Biodegrade In Landfills
Who hasn’t bought a bunch of fresh produce only to watch it die slowly in the fridge? The wilted arugula making wistful sad eyes at you while you throw it in the trash and promise next week will be less Uber eats and more cooking feasts. Aside from the damage it does to your wallet, chucking food waste in the trash is devastatingly bad for the environment. Join me in exiting the shame spiral by responsibly dealing with food waste and creating some free fertilizer for yourself using composting, no matter what size your home is.
Most of us view throwing out food waste as environmentally harmless because it is biodegradable and breaks down in landfill. But landfill is frankly where delicious dreams go to die. When food waste is sent to landfill, the nutrients in the food never return to the soil. Here food rots and creates methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times as potent as CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere. This is called anaerobic decomposition, a process far more harmful to the planet than natural decomposition, in fact, it’s estimated that every pound of discarded food generates 3.8 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.
Composting on the other hand harnesses the power of nature to transform kitchen scraps into nutrient-rich soil. It allows food (and paper) to safely break down, cuts your gas emissions down radically, saves the resources associated with transporting waste, and helps cultivate healthy soil. By composting at home, we can significantly decrease the amount of trash that ends up in landfills. It's a little act of rebellion against today’s throwaway culture!
To compost when you don’t have an outdoor space using tools like a electric composter which processes the food for you turning it into nutrient rich output for plants. You can also use containers designed to be small in size and compost food scraps down fast such as a worm farm or a Bokashi Composter.
Odor-Free Bokashi Kitchen Compost Bin
If you do have a garden to compost all you need to do is dig a small hole in a corner of your yard. I like to dig shallow holes frequently but some people like to dig one central deep hole that they can keep adding to - think 1-6 feet. Then all you do is place your food scraps in the hole and toss some cardboard, paper, soil, or leaves on top to cover it. This is, in my opinion, the ultimate way to recycle paper too as you simply return it to the earth.
COMPOSTING 101
Avoid:
Adding meat, fish, dairy products, or greasy foods to your compost pile to keep it pH balanced and free from pests
Include:
Paper, cardboard, cardboard egg cartons - just remove any plastic or sticky tape from it first
Citrus, teabags, coffee grounds, eggshells, and most other food waste.
What I like to do is collect all my scraps over a few days instead of running outside every time I peel a carrot. As I accumulate scraps I pop them in a Tupperware container kept in the freezer (to ward off bugs). Once I’ve filled the container I take it outside and empty it into the hole and cover it with leaves. If you have a big compost pile you can grab a shovel and give it a stir every now and then to aerate it and help speed up the process.
Keep adding to your compost pile until it’s at ground level and fully decomposed, then it’s time to start a new hole. The nutrient-rich soil you will be left with can be used to grow other plants. You can cover the soil around your existing plants with the composted mix as a natural mulch. This will help retain moisture, limit weed growth, and slowly release nutrients into the soil. You can also use it as super nutrient-dense soil to pot and grow new plants.
