What do you know about hazardous waste?: Composting

California News about City Farm

City Farm is a college's organic urban farm with students using this plot of land to experiment and learn about recycling organic waste in a natural way and creating a "healthy, valuable, nutrient-rich compost for the next growing season". The soil they have available to them is quite "dead" as it is nutrient deficient and dry. Composting is a very useful and helpful process of reusing waste. Many schools and communities are making gardens using the simple concept of composting. For those of you who do not know what it is or how it's made I will share a bit here.

http://ladpw.org/epd/sg/bc.cfm

Composting is simply food or plant remnants that are being decomposed and can be mixed with soil to produce a richer organic soil that is good for gardening. It is a natural process that happens on its own, but is also becoming a trend today.

Take a peak in your trash can and estimate how much is actually trash.

Some of it may be recyclable (such as glass, aluminum, plastic, cardboard, paper, or anything you can rip), but I'm sure a lot of it is leftovers from dinner. A useful way to reduce the amount of garbage you need to carry out to the dumpster as well as needlessly send to landfills, is simply to recycle it. You can do this by throwing all of your organic yard and kitchen waste into a separate bin or even create a small mound on the ground.

http://idreamofeden.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/composting-for-dummies-myself-included/

It may smell, but if turned and mixed it should have a naturally rich, earthy smell so that may factor in on where you want to store it. I worked at a bible camp called Grindstone Lake Bible Camp during the summer of my early undergrad years and we had the compost bins right in the cafeteria. The smell was not overpowering as they would be taken out after supper every day and dumped in a pile on the other side of the camp. I thought it was a great idea and we can see from this that you could store it outside or in a cupboard/closet type place like my family does.

The problem some people face is "Winter Composting". One solution would be to simply forego this practice until Spring or to build your own compost dumpster/bin. To learn how to compost visit: Howtocompost.org.

http://green.wikia.com/wiki/Compost

My Biology class here at Winona State University is composting in our lab and will be observing the change from dry soil to rich soil as we add items such as egg shells, orange and banana peelings, apple cores, unused or moldy bread etc.

For learning how to compost at home, one of the best sources I've found comes from Cornell Waste Management Institute, Dept of Crop and Soil Sciences, which you can find at Home Composting.

For a video showing how to build one click Start Composting.

For an interactive way to learn composting techniques click RECYCLENOW.

Taken from "idreamofeden.wordpress.com" here is what you should NOT put in your compost bucket/pile. Hazardous waste.

Leave Out/Reason Why