Composting: The Why’s and the How’s
Folks, it’s our pleasure to announce May 7-13th is International Compost Awareness Week!
Why Compost?
Composting is one of the EASIEST and HIGHEST-IMPACT changes people and businesses can make. It reduces greenhouse gasses, promotes healthy soil, and sequesters carbon.
When our food waste goes into landfills, it gets crushed and starved of oxygen, and then it turns into methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that’s at least 28x more powerful than carbon dioxide. Our food waste generates a lot of it—in 2017, it was nearly double the amount brought about by coal mining, according to the EPA.
Methane is short-lived; the damage from it is concentrated in a narrow time period, accelerating the pace of climate change. So lowering methane emissions slows down Earth's warming by giving the methane that is already in the atmosphere time to dissipate long before the CO2 does.
Instead of letting your scraps become a rotting, gassy mess in a landfill, you can send them to a composting facility, where their nutrients yield a healthy soil, highly effective at absorbing water, reducing runoff, stemming erosion, and sequestering carbon. This soil is ripe with microorganisms, and plants grown in it are well-protected against pests and disease, allowing for reduced pesticide use.
As an added bonus, your garbage will smell better! Organic waste rots when it’s buried under other garbage and thereby starved of oxygen. Storing food scraps in a separate bin eliminates those rotting odors, and you won’t have to empty it as often.
Myth #1 My house will smell: Debunked!
How to Compost
Step One: Choose a composting service that fits your needs. Regular pickup services provide a large bin that will be swapped out with a clean one upon pickup. Or drop off your compost at a crowdsourced neighborhood bin, farmers market or municipal facility. If you have a yard, you can do your own composting and plant a vegetable garden!
Myth #2 Composting is hard: Debunked!
Step Two: 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 it into the bin your pickup service provides, or store it in the freezer in BPI compostable bags until drop-off day.
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? Contact us at environment@lwvchicago.org, or join us for our Environmental Action Committee meetings!