Composting works by providing a work crew of beneficial microbes with a happy home and then letting them do their own thing. Provide the microbes with food (organic waste), air, water, and warmth, and they will happily decompose your waste into lovely compost. “There are various methods of...
Compostis a nutrient-rich, soil-like material made up of decomposing organic matter—most often fallen leaves, grass clippings, plant debris, vegetable scraps, and yard waste. The key idea behind composting is that the materials and waste that you might normally throw away can be recycled to h...
Yard Waste Anytime you do yard chores, collect the debris in a bucket and dump it into the compost bin. This forms the "brown layer," which provides lots of the nitrogen necessary for the composting process. Word to the wise: Weeds will technically break down to become compost, but they...
if you have a lot of carbon-rich yard waste and not enough nitrogen-rich food waste, it could mess up the ratio (we’ll get to that in a minute), making it harder for it to compost.
How Cities Compost Mountains of Food WasteHoward, Brian ClarkHoward, B. (2013). How cities compost mountains of food waste. National Geographic. Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130618-food-waste-composting-nyc-san- francisco/...
Why reduce food waste at all? One question that pops up all the time is“Why should we reduce food waste in the first place?”. We understand why you might be asking yourself this. After all, one person’s banana peels can’t havethat muchof an effect on the world, right?
Properly labeling and dating all foods stored in the freezer and/or leftovers in the refrigerator can also avoid unnecessary waste! If you do notice that a piece of produce is aging or starting to spoil, remove it ASAP to use it, compost it, or freeze it. Why? Decaying produce emits a...
Food waste happens thanks to a chain of different (and expensive) behaviors starting with grocery planning, food shopping, meal preparation, languishing leftovers, odd ingredients, and ending with everything in the trash or compost bin. How much food do we waste?
AIR:There are steps to composting that include making sure the pile gets air, turning it, and making sure it stays moist. These will help speed the process. If you have the space for your compost to sit and do its thing for months, rather than weeks, then these steps can be more int...
"Less food ends up in a landfill or compost and we have more food to eat for the same price paid," says Abby K. Cannon, RD, CDN and founder ofAbby's Food Court. So don't just throw away perfectly good parts offruits and vegetablessimply because you're not used to eating them. ...