Reduce, Reuse and Compost!
“Composting is my favorite thing!” crows Insa Riepen, executive director of Recycle Utah. “It’s the ultimate way to recycle.”
With other types of recycling, we submit plastic or glass to the recycling center and then figure that through some special process, these items might come back to us as fleece jackets or more beer bottles. But when we compost our kitchen waste, we get to enjoy the finished product ourselves, feeding it back into the earth that’s literally in our own backyards.
Composting is the natural process whereby nutrients in organic waste are broken down so that they can be reused by live plants. Mother Nature does this all the time. It turns out that it’s pretty easy for us to do, too.
Those lettuce bottoms, orange peels and melon rinds that make the garbage heavy and stinky can go right into a compost bin and come out a year or so later as dark, rich mulch that will make your roses bloom and attract beneficial earthworms (for whom compost is like steroids)!
At Recycle Utah, Riepen hosts a free composting workshop each spring and fall to help people get started. Information can also be found in the “Green Book” on Recycle Utah’s Web site at www.recycleutah.org, and they sell compost bins for about $10.
Composting is truly simple. Some people build a box to hold their compost pile. I use a plastic trashcan with holes drilled into the bottom and sides. Others just mound the stuff on the ground. You can purchase fancier composters from garden stores and catalogues, too.
Collect the kitchen waste that would normally go into the trash or down the garbage disposal: peels and rinds, inedible bits, egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags, any fruit or vegetable. It’s a good idea to peel off those little stickers that the grocery store puts on the fruit because those don’t compost, and a year later you’ll find yourself extracting them from your otherwise rich, loamy product.
Next, you add “brown waste” — that’s dried leaves, shredded newspaper, sawdust, small twigs and branches.
Do not add any animal products, oil, fats, bones, dairy, or vegetables that have been cooked in oil or butter. They will smell and attract the wrong kind of element to your pile. I’ve found that large fruit and vegetable pits, like those from avocados, mangos, and peaches don’t break down, either.
Every week add the kitchen (“green”) waste along with some “brown” and stir with a shovel or a pitchfork. If the summer is dry, add a little water to keep the pile moist. Amazingly, the compost will begin to generate heat. It cools in the winter and may freeze, but if the mix is good, it will continue to slowly “simmer” even when covered with snow.
Summit Park resident Mark Maziarz likes to tell the story about his compost pile that was covered with snow and, he thought, frozen solid. In March, he shoveled the snow away and found steam rising from the luscious black loam. That’s Mother Nature doing her work, breaking down the waste and transforming it.
At my house, I keep one active bin that I’m currently filling and two more “marinating” bins that sit alongside the house and just do their thing. I stir them occasionally during the summer months, if I get around to it. After they’ve marinated for about a year, I have luscious, dark, crumbly mulch that makes my garden thrive.
Last summer as I was stirring one of the piles, I found a couple of bulbs sprouting. They were hyacinths that I had forced the winter before, and I thought they were pretty tired out, but after a summer of resting and rejuvenating in the compost, they bloomed again beautifully this winter. They had apparently enjoyed a kind of spa vacation for plants.
When your compost is ready (it will look like dark, crumbly soil and no longer have any recognizable bits of vegetable matter left), then spread it out on your lawn or garden. It is not necessary to work it into the earth. The organisms that live in the compost will do that part for you.
Maziarz also notes that composting is a great way to avoid identity theft. He shreds those important business documents and pre-approved credit card applications that he gets in the mail and mixes them right in as “brown” waste.
Riepen points to the best reason for composting: A study this past winter estimated that one of Summit County’s landfills would be out of space in about nine years. Riepen laments, “Thirty percent of what we throw out is green waste.” In this case, it really is wasteful not to put that green stuff back into the earth.
We hear a lot these days about how an individual really can make a difference in environmental issues. As Riepen says, “If you’re seriously considering making a difference, start a compost pile.”
Cheryl Fox loves flowers, and since flowers love compost, she’s been making her own for about five years now. Watching her garden bloom despite the ineptitude of its gardener reaffirms her faith in the universal life force.
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