Composting: the Why’s and How-To’s
The Illinois State Legislature has declared May 1–7 Illinois’s first Composting Awareness Week! Why? Because composting is one of THE easiest and highest-impact changes people and businesses can make to reduce greenhouse gasses, promote healthy soil, and sequester carbon.
Why Compost?
Food waste goes into landfills, where it gets crushed, starved of oxygen, then turns into methane, a greenhouse gas that’s at least 28x more powerful than carbon dioxide. The EPA states that, in 2017, America’s landfills emitted nearly double the methane of coal mining.
But the thing about methane is, it’s short-lived. This means methane damage is concentrated within a narrow time period, accelerating the pace of climate change. Conversely, lowering methane emissions is one of the fastest ways to slow down the planet’s warming, as the methane already in the atmosphere will dissipate long before CO2.
So the practice of composting reduces methane emissions, but what else?
Composting reduces the amount of space dedicated to landfills, and regenerates into healthy soil that sequesters carbon. Instead of your scraps turning into a rotting, gassy mess filling up a landfill, you can send them to a composting facility that turns the nutrients in your food scraps into incredibly healthy soil. This soil is ripe with microorganisms, and plants grown in it are well protected against pests and disease. So composting also reduces the need for pesticides! And, because the soil is so robust, it’s highly effective at absorbing water, reducing runoff, stemming erosion and sequestering carbon.
Plus, composting will actually improve the smell of your garbage bin, so you won’t have to empty it as often. Organic waste rots when it’s starved of oxygen, so storing food scraps in a separate bin, where it doesn’t get crushed by other garbage, eliminates those rotting odors.
Myth #1 My house will smell: Debunked!
How to Compost
Step One: Get a kitchen compost container. Fancy or simple, the choice is yours. The trick is to get one you will keep on your counter or in/under the kitchen sink so it is accessible. When full, empty the kitchen bin either into the large bin your pickup service provides or store in the freezer in BPI compostable bags until drop-off day.
Step Two: Choose a composting service that fits your needs. Regular pickup services will provide a large bin that will be swapped out with a clean one upon pickup. Or drop off your compost to a crowdsourced neighborhood bin, farmers market or municipal facility. If you have a yard, you might want to do your own composting and plant a vegetable garden!
Myth #2 Composting is hard: Debunked!
Myth #3 I live in a high rise, I can’t compost: Debunked!
Use our Tips and Tricks for Sustainable Living to reduce organic waste!
The simple practices of shopping with a list, only buying what you need and using what you buy will reduce the amount of waste you generate up front. These Tips and Tricks plus many more can be found on our webpage.
Want to do more? Join us for our Environmental Action Committee meetings, the first and third Monday of each month!