Composting
Information is like compost; it does no good unless you spread it around - Eliot Coleman
image by: Roseville Utility Exploration Center
HWN Suggests
The Benefits of Composting
When we grow food, we take nutrients from the ground. When we send our food scraps to the landfill, we miss an opportunity to put those nutrients back into the soil. Composting converts organic waste into a nutrient-rich amendment that feeds the soil, which creates a circular or closed loop system that allows us to have nutritious food for future generations...
Compost supports a wide range of environmental and social challenges. Closing the loop on food waste and getting high quality compost into the hands of local growers can have tremendous impact on the biodiversity and health of our land, greenhouse emission reduction, and food future.
Resources
Composting Myths Debunked: The Truth About ‘Non-Compostable’ Items
In summary, if you can hot compost, you can deal with many ‘non-compostable’ items. And don’t let the perceived complexity of hot composting put you off!
Turning crap into gold: why a composting habit will change your life
Compost is decomposed organic material. Think newspapers, fruit and vegetable scraps, eggshells – anything that is made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. And the good news is, that’s a lot of things. Once you start shopping with the premise of “can I put this in my compost bin”, it will affect your consumption choices dramatically. Once I started asking myself this question constantly, I cut the contents of household red bin garbage by three-quarters within a week. And when you’ve brought your compost-friendly purchases home, it will dramatically change the way you eat, too.
Anyone can compost their food waste (and everyone should)
There are many variations on composting, and the best one for you depends on where you live—like an apartment or a house with a backyard—and what level of involvement you want in it.
Benefits of Compost
Compost, when used correctly, saves money through reduced maintenance costs, ensures your project is more sustainable, and increases your project’s overall likelihood of success among other environmental benefits.
City compost programs turn garbage into ‘black gold’ that boosts food security and social justice
To make good compost, you mix green plant waste, like vegetable peels, garden leaf litter or straw, with brown organic matter like soil or manure. Then, over weeks to months, microbes turn the mix into compost, which looks just like soil. This process produces heat as the microbes break chemical bonds in the plant matter, releasing energy. Compost piles can reach internal temperatures up to 170 degrees F. The heat kills potential microbial pathogens that can ride along with manure inputs.
Compost can help protect us from food poisoning
New research from an agricultural experiment at the University of California Davis finds that using compost, even animal-based composts that farmers sometimes shy away from can lead to healthier soils and potentially fewer pathogens when compared to other conventional fertilizers which are manufactured from minerals and atmospheric gases.
Compost History: The Fascinating Story of an Ancient Science
It’s likely that the first use of compost – or at least manure – took place not long after the start of cultivation. After all, a people who lived close to nature would soon have noticed the grass grew greener where an animal had deposited its poo.
Compost: What is it and why you should care
With practice, composting becomes a way of life. It can be a simple family activity, or you can put on your mad scientist hat and design a complicated composting system! Once you get the hang of it, you will be thrilled by the health of your plants, and you will be contributing to the health of the Earth. What is there to lose?
Composting can help fight climate change. Get started in 5 easy steps
Keeping food out of landfills can help fight climate change. And, luckily, there's an easy solution for your home food waste: Composting! It doesn't matter if you're in a suburban home or a tiny apartment.
Convert food scraps to fertilizer with this $479 composter, featured at CES
Turn trash to treasure.
Having a Compost Bin Makes You Care Less About Food Waste
The research, which was published yesterday by agricultural economists at Ohio State University, found that people will waste less food when they are educated about the environmental impact of chucking it in the bin. But if they think it's going to compost instead of landfill, most won't care about the amount they're throwing away. While composting provides benefits like soil nourishment, it still comes at a financial cost and doesn't curb food waste.
How Composting Has Gone High-Tech
We tried out four new ways to encourage rot that are easier, chicer and far less smelly than the hippy methods of old.
How to compost
Autumn rots all that summer has brought forth. It does so both gently and brutally. The leaves of pumpkins turn ghostly white with mildews, perennials start to drain their leaves of colour and all number of spores and microbes set to work. Slugs, bold now the sun’s heat has gone, move out in force to clean up the remainders.
How to Compost at Home, According to Experts
The full breakdown to breaking down your food.
How to start composting at home
Organic waste doesn’t belong in a landfill. Use this kit to turn it into mulch your plants will devour.
Human composting could be the future of deathcare
Washington becomes first US state to legalise practice as interest in green burials surges in UK
Paper: Better to Recycle or Compost?
After doing a number of composting seminars this spring, I was asked this question a few times: is it better to recycle paper or compost paper? Well, the way I always respond is "it depends on what type of paper!" So here are my thoughts on a few paper products and if they should be composted or recycled.
The 17 Best Composter Options to Help You Reduce Food Waste...
From cute countertop bins to machines that do the dirty work for you.
The 6 Best Compost Bins (for Making Captain Planet Proud)
Save the world by turning your produce scraps into gold (fertilizer) with these composting receptacles.
The Best Compost Bins, According to Wirecutter Staff
The more I learn about composting, the more I think of the song “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out” by Yusuf / Cat Stevens: “Cause there’s a million ways to go.” Aboveground or underground, hot or cool, batch or continuous—the list goes on.
The US stinks at composting. Here’s how we can change that.
'It needs to be as convenient as trash to set up.'
Trash to Treasure: The Incredible Benefits of Composting
As a field at the forefront of environmental health, public health can take the lead in teaching and encouraging sustainable practices around our daily behaviors, including what we do with our waste products. Especially for those overwhelmed by the idea of global climate change often seems futile, it is important to remember that small lifestyle changes can have large impacts. One place to start is with composting.
Your compostable cups and containers aren’t reversing the plastic problem
Our waste systems just aren't ready for compostable plastic.
Your Guide On How to Make a Compost Bin
A compost bin is a smart way to put food scraps to good use—and no, it won't smell up your apartment.
The Benefits of Composting
Composting has a wide range of environmental and social benefits beyond waste reduction. In addition to the environmental impact like increasing water retention, and suppressing plant diseases, industrial scale compost operations can generate twice as many jobs as landfilling and seventeen times as many as incineration.
23 Benefits of Compost Backed by Science
There was a time when scientists thought agriculture was simple. You added fertilisers, plants used the fertilisers to grow. But the more we study the soil, and the environment, the more we learn about the interconnection between soil, plants and food It’s a fascinating, complicated subject. And while we still have a lot to learn, it’s clear that the benefits of compost are huge and interwoven.
Compost Magazine
Composting tips, advice and science.
Confessions of a Composter
Get the dirt on backyard composting in Hamilton County.
The Compost Exchange
Composting makes a significant impact on our community - and for the world as a whole. The more people that compost, the more the impact.
US Composting Council
We believe compost manufacturing and compost utilization are central to creating healthy soils, clean air and water, a stable climate, and promoting a regenerative society.
An Adventure in Composting Gone Very Wrong
Years ago, before the advent of quiet kitchen composters that look more like Xboxes than trash heaps, I got a worm bin. A worm bin is essentially a compost bucket filled with worms that eat your table scraps and, over time, turn them into ... compost. You're supposed to get a worm bin because you're trying to reduce landfill waste. You're supposed to get a worm bin to create nutrient rich dirt-stuff for your beautiful plants and/or terrific garden. You're supposed to get a worm bin to help create a more sustainable planet. I did it for all those reasons, but mostly I got a worm bin because I'm lazy and hate cleaning.
Your compost questions: eight lessons we learned
If your space is limited and you only produce low quantities of waste material, think about starting a wormery.
Introducing Stitches!
Your Path to Meaningful Connections in the World of Health and Medicine
Connect, Collaborate, and Engage!
Coming Soon - Stitches, the innovative chat app from the creators of HWN. Join meaningful conversations on health and medical topics. Share text, images, and videos seamlessly. Connect directly within HWN's topic pages and articles.
