Compost: Simple green idea
November 10, 2007
November 15 is America Recycles Day. One simple way to get involved in recycling is to start your very own compost pile.
Yard trimmings and food waste account for 24 percent of the solid waste in the Unites States. Making a compost pile will cut down on the amount of waste you send to the landfills.
Compost piles are great ways to recycle and to improve the quality of your yard. You can take almost any organic waste like yard trimmings, fruits, vegetables, eggshells, tea bags, coffee grounds, sawdust, or houseplants and put them into a compost pile to break down into a soil-enriching humus that can be spread onto your lawn and garden.
A compost pile is made up of green and brown waste materials. Green waste is any wet, nitrogen rich waste like grass clippings, coffee grounds, and most other plant waste. Brown waste is dry; wood chips, dry leaves, branches, and shredded newspaper are all considered brown waste. The brown waste is rich in carbon. Nitrogen and carbon are essential to a good compost pile.
You can’t just throw anything into a compost pile though. Anything that has been treated with pesticides is a compost no-no because the pesticides can kill organisms that are breaking down material for the compost. Meat scraps and dairy products can attract pests like flies or rodents. Black walnut tree leaves and twigs releases substances that can harm plants.
The EPA’s Composting website features these areas of information:
- Basic Information - provides a general description of what compost is and which materials should and should not be composted.
- Where You Live
- Frequent Questions - presents frequent questions about how and why you should compost.
- Laws/Statutes - discusses regulations for organics materials and composting facilities.
- Environmental Benefits - explains how composting benefits the environment.
- Science/Technology - discusses how the composting process works and the different methods of composting, such as creating your own composting pile
- Publications - contains a list of composting and related publications.
- Related Links - provides links to various composting-related web sites.