MEETING : Composting with Jane Hiller of Sunoco Recycling

Thursday, July 1, 2010

There are three types of garbage:

1. Good garbage which is organic matter (fruits, veggies, anything from a plant) we can use in our compost
2. Bad garbage is anything we put in landfills (leaky batteries, mercury from light bulbs, anything that stays in the landfill forever and does not decompose
3. Reuseable products; it is important to buy good products we can reuse and recycle

Nobody wants to live next to a landfill.

Whatever is at the bottom of the landfill is toxic.

The methane gas on top is twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide

At the turn of the twentieth century, we had 16 inches of top soil. Today, we only have four inches.  We are not putting good organic material back into our earth. We are cutting down trees and getting rid of forests, so what little top soil we have is being washed into our lakes and rivers. What is worse is good organic garbage that is buried just three feet below the ground is not turning into soil. A banana peel takes three to four weeks to turn into soil, but it will remain a recognizable banana peel in a landfill. We need to compost in our own homes.

Did you know 50% of what we throw away can be composted?  If we all composted, we could have our own fertilizer and less energy would be used and less money spent on picking up our trash.

What else can we do? We can:

• Vote
• Support organizations that are greener
• Care for our personal property

There are many different ways to compost.  Some ways are to:

• Use wooden palettes, building a square, with 1 square as the door to the compost pile
• Use a big black sheet of plastic that forms a circle and encircles the compost
• Use two containers stacked and drilled with holes for vermicomposting: add some sand, soil, newspaper and organic matter, and watch your worms do wonders… and give some worms away to friends

Be sure to:

• Mix wet = green = nitrogen with dry = brown = carbon
• Place dry on top, as bugs are attracted to wet
• Cut pieces as small as possible
• Sprinkle your compost around the plant or mix with potting soil
• Make compost tea by adding a couple of scoops of compost with water, let it steep for a day and water

Also keep in mind:

• So there is less smell and it is less of an attraction to animals, don’t add fats and sugar into the compost pile (i.e. salad dressings)
• Too much of wet and it will smell bad, too much of brown and nothing will break down
• Do not let fresh compost touch your plant as it is nitrogen rich and will burn your plants

Some additional tidbits:

• Home Depot recycles fluorescent light bulbs with mercury in them
• It is against the law to dump mercury bulbs in the garbage

 Thanks to Jane, our kids got to look and touch worms. We, as parents, felt compelled to start composting (or proud that we already do), recycle better and be very proactive in buying better products to lessen our carbon footprint.

Resources:

• Environmental Education Association of South Carolina, Inc.
• Keep The Midlands Beautiful