In this other post I shared how much of a problem food waste is in the US, with 66 million tons generated per year and 40% of that coming from households. For that reason as Frugal Urban Homesteaders we have incorporated a composting setup in our backyard in order to do our part to keep food waste out of the landfill.
In this info-graphic the EPA outlines the preferred paths for food waste before finally sending it to the landfill. This post focuses on the home composting part of this strategy.
What is Compost?
Compost is a dark, crumbly material made from decomposing organic matter, such as food scraps, leaves, and grass clippings, that can be used as a fertilizer and soil conditioner. Compost is a great soil amendment that can provide nutrients to plants and improve soil health. This material is created through natural decomposition of organic materials by bacteria, fungi, and other organisms that breakdown the material. For example when grass clippings are left on the lawn they will eventually breakdown and reintegrate back in to the soil.
What is Composting?
Composting is an activity that we can do at home to collect these input materials and put them in an optimized environment to help speed up the natural processes. By combining different types of inputs, typically called greens and browns, and with proper attention such as watering and turning this process can be sped up and provide a huge amount of compost material which can benefit your own garden or yard.
The best part about composting is that it’s hard to screw up. As long as you keep it to organic materials, they will all break down eventually, so if you don’t tend to your pile in an ideal way it will still eventually break down providing the useful compost to add to your garden.
Benefits of Composting
This EPA info-graphic shows the benefits of composting food scraps rather than sending to the landfill. For us that breaks down in to 2 primary categories; Environmental and Garden soil amendment.
Environmental Benefits of Composting
We do what we can to minimize food waste, but it’s practically impossible to make this zero. As described previously there are a lot of problems with sending food waste to landfills but composting at home can help avoid those problems.
- Reduced Landfill Waste: By composting organic waste, you can significantly reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills. This helps to conserve landfill space and reduce the production of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
- Reduced Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Methane is created during anaerobic (without oxygen) breakdown of organic waste. Landfills are a major source of methane emissions because of this. A properly maintained compost pile will be aerobic (with oxygen) which will not create methane. By composting organic waste, you can help to reduce these emissions further reducing your personal impact on climate change.
- Conservation of Resources: Using finished compost on the garden reduces the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, conserving the natural resources that would have been used to manufacture and transport them.
The EPA has website talking about composting here and has created this nice graphic showing a prioritization of how to handle this food waste.
Benefits of Compost for Your Garden
Compost is a natural fertilizer that can improve the health and productivity of your garden. Here are some of the benefits of using compost:
- Improved Soil Structure: Compost helps to improve soil structure by increasing its water-holding capacity and aeration. This leads to healthier plant roots and better nutrient uptake.
- Increased Nutrient Content: Compost is rich in essential nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which are vital for plant growth.
- Enhanced Soil Fertility: By adding compost to your garden, you can increase soil fertility and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers.
- Pest and Disease Control: Compost can help to suppress soil-borne pests and diseases and with a reduced or eliminated need for pesticides we are much more pollinator friendly.
As we continue to increase the amount we are gardening, and even adding more raised beds, we seem to always have a home for this compost. If we find ourselves with finished compost and are unsure where to put it, we can always spread it on the yard.
Next steps
In another post I review the different ways to compost and how we have implemented it in our backyard.
Notes:
As I researched for this post I came across an interesting organization called Institue for Local Self-Reliance (a.k.a. ILSR). They have a lot of interesting information available on several topics. Here is the page specifically related to community composting.
