Composting

Compost!

It has totally changed my view on how I look at garbage, 

and how we treat the planet.

How does it work?
- As our kitchen and garden waste breaks down in a compost heap, it releases a lot of heat. This heat helps to kill off any harmful bacteria that may be present in the decaying food. The compost that you are then left with is full of nutrients and then can be added to your garden to help plants grow.
- True, they are harder to keep in the winter as cold weather slows down the process, but it is still worth it to compost through the colder months.
- Compost can be make is just a mere 12 weeks!

 What can be composted?
- Lawn clippings
- Leaves
- Shredded stalks and hedge clippings
- Cut flowers
- Veg and Fruit scraps
- Teabags, and coffee grounds
- Egg shells
- News paper

What cannot be composted?
- Diseased Plants
- Plastics, glass, and other non organic materials
- Cooked food including meat and dairy
- Raw meat and fish, dairy and eggs
- Colored, glossy paper
- Pet droppings

The city of Vancouver will even take :
- Meat, fish, or bones
- Cooked food and oily food
- Dairy, pasta, noodles, rice, or bread
- Short branches and prunings (less than 10 cm thick, and less than 0.5 m long)
 (So it goes to show that every compost is a little different)

Important :
It is very important to have a good balance between materials that are considered "brown" and and those that are considered "green". If the compost becomes wet and slimy it means that there is too much "green" material such as grass clippings and veggie peelings. So you need to think about adding more "brown" coarse materials such as broken down twigs, wood chips, newspaper, or egg carton, to work on evening out the pile, and then make sure to turn it ever so often.

The city of Vancouver will even take :
- Meat, fish, or bones
- Cooked food and oily food
- Dairy, pasta, noodles, rice, or bread
- Short branches and prunings (less than 10 cm thick, and less than 0.5 m long)
 (So it goes to show that every compost is a little different)

What I do :
 I am lucky enough to live in a house that has a green wastes bin that gets picked up every week (and before that I lived in a house that had a big enough back yard for a large compost bin). This allows me to have a counter top compost in a stainless steel bucket (http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?p=10025&cat=2,33140&ap=1) which I empty out about once a week depending on how much I am cooking. I really love it. There is no smell it is easy to use, and I feel much better putting my scraps back into the earth, rather than trapped inside I a garbage bag that will never disintegrate.

Benefits of composting :
- Less food waste remains in the garbage
- Ideal for people with gardens
- Produces liquid fertilizer for house and garden plants
- Makes you look differently your own garbage and recycling habits