Have you ever looked at your trashcan and wondered how to cut down on what was going into the landfill? If you’re already recycling, composting is the next step to a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. But how do you get started?
What is Composting?
Composing is a green and environmentally friendly way to replicate what nature already does. Instead of putting organic matter in the trash can, one separates it out and sends it to a composting site where it can naturally biodegrade into a nutrient rich soil. The soil can then be added to gardens as safe and environmentally friendly fertilizer.
How Does One Compost?
There’s a lot of different ways to compost, from hiring a service to entirely do it yourself. Below are some ideas about how to get started.
Collect and Pick Up
The absolute easiest way to compost is to hire an environmentally conscious service to collect your compost. That way, all you are responsible for is separating the compostable material (different services will have different rules about what they take, much like recycling) into a compostable bag. When the bag is full you simply take it out to a bin, and the service picks it up on a specific date. Compostable bags are available at many local grocery stores in the trash bag aisle.
The Compost Crew is a service that picks up compost in Montgomery County, MD.
Do It Yourself
The advantage of do it yourself composting is that you get to keep all that nice rich soil, but it is a little bit more work. Below are some specially designed environmentally friendly composters to make it less intimidating.
The FCMP Tumbling Composter with Two Chambers is easy to use. This composter features two chambers so that one chamber can actively compost as you are adding food to the other, and is much easier to turn than a traditional compost pile.
An alternative to a tumbling composter is one like this
An alternative to classic tumbling composters, the Algreen Soil Saver allows you to throw new food waste on top, while still using the composted soil from the bottom, as you can see in this cutout photo.
