When I moved from one municipality to another, Waste Management, the same company, didn’t offer food scrap composting with green waste, as my old city did. This has been an adjustment because there is also no natural composting area in my backyard, given the lack of trees and the hardscape already in place.
But my son and I love to compost. It makes so much more sense when you understand the toxic soup our garbage dumps become, and you learn that food does not easily biodegrade in such sites but sits in layers for future garbologists to find. Even the most reluctant composters are convinced of the efficacy.
To begin composting, you need a breathable bin with a lid. To get started, you need to understand the balance between greens, high in nitrogen and browns, high in carbons. Below is a partial list of items to compost.
Browns:
Yard waste, including pine needles, non-flowering dried weeds, shredded stems, leaves and branches, sawdust, straw, bark, peat moss, shredded newsprint, used paper napkins, nut shells, corn cobs and husks, wood ashes, (but not charcoal.)
Greens:
Kitchen food scraps, peelings, coffee grounds, tea bags, garden waste, grass clippings, seaweed rinsed to remove the salt, crushed egg-shells.
If you have lots of time and space, you can just toss all this together in the back-forty and be prepared for some heavy lifting and turning of the pile over a couple of years, but the bin will do a much quicker job. All compost requires turning, the addition of red worms will do some of your work for you. You can find red worms at the nursery or places where fishing bait is found.
Your compost will heat up to temperatures between 120 to 160 degrees. It’s the combination heat, bacteria, and oxygen that works the magic.
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