Today I was reading our latest copy of Waste Age Magazine. I know, not exactly my first choice in reading materials, but you just never know when they are going to have an article that is pertinent to PCWD. This time they had an article about composting and you know how we LOVE composting here at the water district. Some of the statistics they quoted were kind of surprising to me.
North America generates more than 80 million tons of organic waste each year, which includes food waste, yard waste and clean wood from forestry projects and the construction and demolition sector. In the U.S., the EPA estimates that about 1/3 of municipal solid waste is organic. While approximately 65% of yard wastes is being diverted for recycling, only around 2.5% of food was is currently being recycled.
(courtesy of Waste Age Feb. 2011 issue)
I am kind of shocked that only 2.5% of food waste is being recycled or composted. This is such a waste of resources, not to mention all the room it must be taking up in the land fills. While new technologies are being developed to capture methane gas from landfills to generate electricity or provide fuel, I am not going to get into that here. What I do want to discuss is composting. Just think if each household composted their food waste, how much trash could be saved from the landfills.
While I do think it is important that schools, restaurants, hotels and so on get on board with composting as well, that is too big a subject for this little blog. So we will keep it local and just think about what Pine Covians can do. While cities like Seattle are miles ahead of us here in Riverside County when it comes to sustainable living, we can follow their lead and set a good example and hopefully push the powers that be in the right direction.
Composting is an incredibly easy way to begin living sustainably. It is easier than you think. I know there is a lot of information out there on how to do it. You need 3 bins or a spinning bin or one big bin. You need to check the moisture content and temperature of your compost pile. You need to constantly turn your pile. You need to layer the greens with the browns, etc., etc., etc. Forget all that. Yes you can do it that way, but here is how I do it.
This is for household food composting. First, get a container for your kitchen counter or put it under your sink. You can buy these online or you can do like I do and use an old stainless steel bowl. What ever you decide to use, just make sure it is easy to clean and has a lid and don't get something so big that it will take 3 months to fill up. Stainless steel or ceramic work really well. I took an old lid from a stock pot and put it on top of my old bowl. Not the most attractive of kitchen accessories, but it does the job and is easy to keep clean.
Step two. Put all your scraps into this bowl. I put in everything but meat. That means veggies that have gone bad in your fridge, veggie peelings, tea bags, coffee grounds, scraps off your plate after a meal, egg shells, paper towel and toilet paper rolls and so on. When your container is full, simply take it outside, dig a hole somewhere in your garden and bury the scraps. That is it. It takes about 10 minutes out of my day once every week or two. I do this in my veggie garden in the off season and during the summer I put it around the yard near the trees and other plants. The scraps will compost themselves and you don't have to worry about doing anything else. Just make sure you dig down far enough that animals don't come buy and dig it back up. And if they do happen to do that, no big deal, just re-bury everything. Easy Peasy!
Compost is a wonderful addition to the garden. It provides nutrients for plants and trees and amended soil has better water retention, thereby conserving water. Add a layer of mulch to that and you are conserving even more water. Here on the hill it is important to conserve water no matter how wet of a winter we have had. Droughts are a fact of life and a few good years won't necessarily end the drought situation. Even if it does, we should always be conserving because you just never know when a drought will return. By making water conservation a way of life, we are caring for our resources and ensuring that we will have water for our future needs.
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