Why is composting so good?
Each year over half of our household garbage is made up of food and garden waste. Most of this organic waste can be recycled via composting.
Organic material like food waste that is put in landfill without air causes over 3% of Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions annually through the production of methane gas (which has 25 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide).
By turning food scraps and organic garden waste into compost you can:
- Reduce the amount of organic waste going to landfill therefore preventing greenhouse gas emissions and leachate which can pollute land, groundwater and waterways.
- Improve soil quality and garden vitality by releasing rich nutrients into the soil. If you don’t have space for a garden, you can use worm farms in a v balcony or give your food scraps to a friend, neighbour or community.
- Suppress plant diseases and pests, this reduces or eliminates the need for chemical fertilisers, pesticides and manures, helping you save time and money.
- When mixed into soil, helps retain moisture in your garden, this means you don’t have to water as often.
Some local councils are collecting kitchen waste as part of their waste collection process. Although a great initiative, even better is keeping your compost locally-made (in your garden or community). This reduces the need for transport, and eliminates the carbon-emitting energy required for waste collection, processing and packaging.
Did you know that when you buy compost from your local nursery, it might be your own compost coming home? Council collections are hauled away in several trucks, processed, packed in plastic, hauled back to a distribution centre, hauled out to a retail store, stacked, displayed, bought, hauled back home by you. You could just have made it yourself- cost free, plastic free, emissions free.
How do I compost at home?
There are many ways to compost at home, here are some examples of how to do it.
Jane’s Story
I live in Marrickville (Inner West Sydney) and although we have a small backyard area there is plenty of space for a compost bin. When I first started composting I used this style of compost bin:
However even though I dug it into the ground, it ended up with a lot of cockroaches and rats getting in underneath it. I found it also a bit hard to keep it aerated and turned.
I looked for a better design that suited my needs and found this compost bin, it has been fantastic. It’s a Viviendo 160L Twin Chamber Tumbler Rotating Compost Bin.
We have a small bucket with lid in the kitchen that we add most of kitchen waste into. Every couple of days I empty the bucket into the compost.
Composting is fun and easy. Every household can do it.
Val’s Story
It’s a step to reach the grapes above.
I made it myself (don’t look to close)
I grew up composting at home with my mother’s lead, and continued in rentals when I left home aged 18. Once I bought a home, a friend and I built this raised garden bed with inbuilt compost bin (about 30 years ago).
Can you spot the compost bin?
The garden bed and the compost share low-built walls made from rescued autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) building blocks from Reverse Garbage in Marrickville.
The removable front of the compost is made of a sheet of rescued compressed concrete that slides up and down. It can be lifted to make it easier to turn and dig out the compost.
The first hinged lid I made with reclaimed wood and gate-hinges. This worked for 30 years, although I replaced it a couple of times as it did weather. As I used waste wood and reused the hinges each time it was easy, and free, to do.
Of course eventually those pesky (and cute, we do like them) rats, over the years, learned how to chew into the wood. You can see below how they gnawed the finger holes until they could fit in. Not a big problem- just need to keep one step ahead of them, eg block the holes, and they’ll go elsewhere.
One pesky rat hole on the left
The latest lid incarnation is this custom hand-made stainless steel lid which is as rat proof as they come! It was free as a friend made it for me in their factory- pays to know the right people! But a scrap of metal attached to the old hinges with rust-proof rivets would have also sufficed.
Sorted- rat proof metal lid, open here as I turn the new food scraps into the old
Much of my household waste goes in here- food scraps, garden clippings, kitchen paper, hair (from hair brushes), egg cartons (plastic label removed)- I even rip open my tea bags and empty the tea leaves in the compost- many tea bags contain plastic, as do paper coffee filters, and cant go in the compost.
If I’m doing a big garden clean up I do resort to the council green bin instead. That amount of plant material just can’t fit in my own system, and takes too long to break down in the home compost.
My compost bin has a natural ecosystem that just runs itself. Like magic, our household kitchen and garden waste shrinks in no time, and turns to rich, black, crumbly soil. I make so much I often give it away via pay-it-forward forums, or to friends and family.
Actual photo of earthworms that moved into my compost- no need for a worm farm
The worms moved in themselves and are such prolific breeders that I give them to people starting worm farms or composts.
And you know, not once has my compost stunk. Huzzah!