Become a Compost Hero | Envs 3032 Project

Composting

Composting involves recycling food waste, organic materials, and manure into fertilizer, enhancing the soil's physical, chemical, and biological properties.

Benefits of Composting

Composting significantly reduces food waste and minimizes the volume of trash in landfills.
The decomposition of organic waste in landfills generates methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Composting facilitates the decay of food waste and organic material, thereby reducing these emissions.
The resulting fertilizer reduces the need for pesticides, boosts crop yields, and aids in sequestering carbon in the soil.
Composting is a cost-effective practice, as it lowers waste management expenses.

How to Become A Compost Hero

An excellent way to begin composting is by purchasing a home composting bin

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A Good Recipe To Feed Your Soil

An effective recipe involves maintaining an equal balance between brown and green materials. It's essential to create uniform layers of brown-green material in the bins.

Layers

Browns include materials rich in carbon, such as fall leaves, woodchips, straw, bark, sawdust, and a mixture of paper and cardboard.

Greens consist of materials abundant in nitrogen, including kitchen waste like coffee grounds, vegetable scraps, and fruit scraps, along with grass clippings and manure.

Maintenance

When maintaining and building your compost bin, ensure it remains covered, stays moist, receives proper aeration, and avoids contamination.

Maintain the compost bin within a pH range of 5.5 to 8.5, ensure the presence of oxygen through methods like blowing, mixing, turning, or natural diffusion, and prevent contamination by excluding items such as glass shards.

Industrial Compost

Since not everyone has access to backyard composting, various cities in the U.S., including Boulder, provide "zero waste" stations located in restaurants, businesses, educational institutions, retail stores, and more, allowing everyone to participate in composting and contribute to food waste reduction efforts.