Composting Awareness Week
Happy International Composting Awareness Week, and thank you to the Illinois Food Scrap Coalition! Composting is when food waste is turned into healthy soil instead of being sent to the landfill. It’s one of THE easiest and highest-impact changes people and businesses can make to reduce greenhouse gasses.
Why Compost?
When landfills crush food waste, they deprive it of oxygen and cause it to turn into methane, a greenhouse gas that’s much more powerful than carbon dioxide. The EPA states that, in 2017, America’s landfills emitted nearly double the methane of coal mining, and food waste accounts for 60% of it. A 2021 study suggests that a landfilled cucumber has 93x the environmental impact of a plastic wrap for the cucumber.
Methane breaks down faster than carbon dioxide does, and because it’s so strong, it releases a disproportionate amount of heat when it dissipates. This makes lowering methane emissions one of the fastest ways to slow down the planet’s warming.
What else? Composting reduces the amount of space dedicated to landfills, and it regenerates into healthy soil that sequesters carbon. 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 and stemming erosion.
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.
So, how can you compost?
Free Public Composting
You put your food waste in a separate container from the rest of your trash, and you transport it to one of the City of Chicago’s 17 food scrap drop-off locations as frequently or infrequently as you want. It’s super easy, especially if you combine it with another errand! Since October, more than 4,800 households have signed up, and their 109 tons of compost have collectively saved 8,000 gas gallons’ worth of greenhouse gas emissions and counting. Sign up here!
Composting Subscription
You sign up with one of Chicago’s composting services, and they come by on a regular schedule to pick up your compost. You decide how often you want them to come by. You can also choose between a personal composting service and a communal one, where you and a couple of your neighbors put your compost in the same bin in the alley. Learn more about composting subscriptions.
DIY Composting
This is the only type of composting you need a backyard to do. Learn more.
Email questions to environment@lwvchicago.org! We meet the third Monday of every month over Zoom.