By Alaina Lightfoot
When thinking about ways to be more sustainable, recycling is often the first option that comes to mind. Sustainability is often presented to us in the neat and tidy rule of three: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. However, recycling should actually be viewed more as a last-ditch effort since most materials can only be recycled a few times before hitting the landfill. Instead, the focus needs to be centered around the Five R’s: Refuse unsustainable products, Reduce the amount of resources you consume, Reuse or repurpose what you can, and Recycle anything possible before jumping directly to your trash can as the easiest method of disposal.
Yet, what about things like food scraps? Body hair? Nail clippings? Certainly, at first glance, these aren’t things we would think to do anything with other than depositing them promptly in the garbage can. After all, they’re natural, they’ll decompose in the landfill, right?
As it turns out, this is where the fifth and arguably most important R comes into play—Rot.
I can remember growing up in the country where compost piles were commonplace. People where I grew up thought nothing of walking out back after dinner and scraping plates into a large pile of compost in the back yard, dumping their bowls of meal prep scraps there at the end of the day, or sending old Halloween pumpkins to their final resting place in the mighty compost pile. When I grew up and moved to the city, I remembered feeling a little lost and shell shocked, especially as I started on my sustainability journey. It seemed like a large part of the waste I was personally producing was directly compostable. What’s worse, without composting things like the scraps from my dinner, according to the EPA, I was joining the rest of America in throwing away the nearly 1.3 pounds of organic waste per person we are disposing of daily. This figure means that annually, 24% of our waste as a nation is comprised of organic, compostable materials.
In landfills, organic material is so covered that it is preserved rather than properly broken down. Trying to rot without enough oxygen means that our organic materials in landfills are creating methane gas as they decompose. In landfills, this natural process of decomposition that should take a few weeks at most takes decades. I knew in order to do right by the planet and do my part in helping to reduce the negative effects methane gas has on climate change, I needed to start composting again. The question was how? I wasn’t in the country where I could just have a massive compost pile in the backyard. I was in a high-rise apartment.
The good news is, if you’re interested in doing your part to redirect your compostable waste, I’ve done the research so you don’t have to! I’ve compiled a few tips that can help you get started with your composting journey, wherever you are.
City Dwellers (Especially for Our Friends in Ann Arbor)
For those of you that are in a home in Ann Arbor, the good news is the city has made composting about as easy as it can be. The city of Ann Arbor’s website has detailed everything you need to know about curbside composting including:
What you can and cannot include in your curbside composting bin
The composting pickup schedule
Where and how to obtain a composting bin if you don’t have one currently
Helpful tips and tricks for composting.
Visit a2gov.org/departments/trash-recycling/Pages/Compost.aspx for more composting tips from the city of Ann Arbor.
If you’re in a home and you’re not local to the area, you may want to look up your city’s composting program. If they don’t have one and a backyard pile isn’t an option for you, you may want to look at some of the tips and tricks I’ve left down below for our friends in apartments or dorm room set-ups.
Country Friends
If you’re out in the country, you have the advantage of composting the way my family did when I was young. As with anything, it’s a good idea to double check for any local laws in your area around open air composting. Starting a compost pile in the backyard can be a little tough at first, but there are lots of great resources available online. Here are a few starter tips for creating your own backyard compost pile.
Use a mix of green and brown material
Green are things like food scraps and green yard waste materials such as lawn clippings and weeds
Brown could be anything from torn up toilet paper rolls to brown yard waste like twigs and small branches
The University of Illinois recommends a small compost pile of 3 feet cubed by 5 feet cubed in order to allow the pile to properly generate the heat and moisture needed to break down organic material without cutting off the all-important ingredient of oxygen.
Turn your pile (using a rake or other gardening tool to pull the warm center of the compost pile toward the outside) every few weeks. According to the University of Illinois, the more frequently you turn the pile, the faster material will break down. However, think in terms of weeks, not days, you don’t want to over-turn your pile.
Starting an outdoor compost pile can take a little more research than other methods, but hopefully with these tips and tricks you’ll be well on your way.
Small Spaces
If you’re in a small space, whether that’s an apartment or a dorm room, then you’re right where I was when I wanted to ramp up my sustainability efforts in a big way. However, composting when you don’t have a curbside option or a backyard compost pile to fall back on can be tough. So, here are a few options that may help if you’re in a small space.
Freeze your compost—This is a tip I picked up from Lauren Singer, founder of the Package Free Shop, who keeps her compost in a stainless-steel bowl in her freezer every week and then takes it to her local farmer’s market to have it composted. I would recommend a reusable airtight container, but this can be one option if you have, say, a friend or family member with a compost pile you could take your scraps to. I used to utilize this method and take my scraps to a local community garden with a compost pile. It may take a little digging to find somewhere with a compost pile you can take your scraps.
Try a worm or vermicompost bin—This really depends on if you have a good place to put it, but you can get these more compact self-contained bins lots of places. These use live worms to help with an indoor decomposition process. This has the added benefit of producing a liquid called “worm tea” which you definitely won’t want to drink, but your house plants just might!
Like our lifestyles, composting comes with a million different variables and it helps to do a little research on your unique situation before taking up the composting mantle. If you don’t personally have a use for your compost soil once your materials have had time to decompose, see if there are local farmers or gardening associations that may want the compost soil your pile is producing.
Composting can be a great way to get rid of a lot of organic materials waste in your home that you may have not realized can be broken down naturally. Depending on how you compost, there are certain things you may want to omit from your compost pile or that your city may not accept in curbside bins. Most toilet paper and paper towel rolls work great if they’ve been shredded, beard and nail clippings (or the hair when you clean out your hairbrush), many household items made from 100% cotton such as cotton balls, pencil shavings, and even the crumbs from your counters and floors can all go in your compost pile. A quick internet search can usually clear up if something is compostable or not, but a good rule of thumb is that if it is a 100% natural, organic product, it will break down in the compost.
Related Content:
When thinking about ways to be more sustainable, recycling is often the first option that comes to mind. Sustainability is often presented to us in the neat and tidy rule of three: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. However, recycling should actually be viewed more as a last-ditch effort since most materials can only be recycled a few times before hitting the landfill. Instead, the focus needs to be centered around the Five R’s: Refuse unsustainable products, Reduce the amount of resources you consume, Reuse or repurpose what you can, and Recycle anything possible before jumping directly to your trash can as the easiest method of disposal.