How to Compost Outside the Home
Let’s say you want to recycle organic waste but have no interest in starting a compost pile in the backyard. There’s an app for that, an environmental application known as commercial composting.
Chances are you’ve contributed to commercial compost in the past without even realizing it. Common applications of compost include curbside green waste collection programs and Christmas tree mulching.
The U.S. EPA estimates that each American throws away an average of 1.3 pounds of food scraps daily. Photo: Amanda Wills, Earth911.com
Commercial composting is able to cast a wider net than composting at home, for a number of reasons:
- It can often accept and process additional materials, such as meats and compostable or biodegradable plastics, that would not break down in a home compost pile.
- It has the potential to accommodate a much larger amount of waste, bringing into play partnerships with businesses, such as restaurants.
- In addition to making nutrient-rich fertilizer, the organic waste can be converted into clean-burning fuel to provide a renewable source of energy.
But how does it work and how can you participate? Here’s everything you need to know about commercial composting.
The Organic Lingo
In composting, there are two types of waste you’re dealing with: green waste and brown waste. Green waste is rich in nitrogen and incorporates all food waste and anything green from the yard. Brown waste is more carbon-based and includes any paper, wood materials or anything brown from the yard. The key to successful compost in any scenario is a balance of brown and green waste.
As a result, you will often see commercial composters accepting both forms of waste from the public, and it may be required that you keep them separated during transportation. You’ll notice that communities that offer curbside yard waste collection provide a bin that is separate from your normal recyclables.
If you know what type of organic waste you have, it will be easier to find someone to haul it away or a place to drop it off.
Common applications of compost include curbside yard waste collection programs. Photo: Flickr/tlr3automaton
Where It’s At
So you’ve collected a bunch of organic material, and now you need a recycler. The first place to check is with your city and/or county because, more than likely, the facility will be funded by tax money, and you can drop off material at no charge. Contact your local solid waste department and ask what to do with yard waste.
In many cases, your state will keep a list of these facilities on file as well, as there may be state permits required to operate a commercial composting facility. States like New York will even provide a map of facilities that are open to the public.
Another option is to search for a commercially owned compost site. These are often local farms or gardens that will turn the material into their own brand of fertilizer. In many cases, a commercial site will charge you a fee to dispose of organic material, but it’s typically based on volume (by the ton), so a truckload of material won’t cost you very much.
Windrow to the Future
There are a few different ways that commercial compost can be treated, but the most common is creating stacked rows of material known as windrows. A windrow is essentially a 4- to 8-foot hill of organic material that is aerated periodically when a machine turns the pile.
They are also climate controlled, meaning that interior temperatures can get hot enough for material to decompose without warm exterior temperatures, as long as the piles are consistently rotated. It may take up to six months to convert all the material into compost.
The primary issue with windrow composting is that it requires a lot of land, as each pile is usually about 15 feet long. This can lead to cities reevaluating the location of their compost facility. It also releases a liquid known as leachate during the process, which can contaminate groundwater if the compost has a high level of bacteria or heavy metal.
The alternative to composting though can also have environmental consequences. When organic waste is landfilled, it releases methane gas during decomposition, which contributes to global warming.
There are alternative ways that organic waste can be handled by your community. Tree trimmings can be chipped to produce wood chips or mulched in city parks. Material can also be used as landfill cover, which is applied daily to the top of landfills to allow easier access for trucks and reduce odors or disease. It may seem like a waste of the material, but landfill cover is a necessity, and the alternative is using material-like tire chips.
The Choice is Yours
You may be surprised to know that yard trimmings and food waste make up 24 percent of all the material households threw away in 2008. According to the EPA, we already recycle almost 65 percent of this material, but there is still room for improvement. Composting is not just for organic farms anymore, and we’ve got the yard waste landfill bans to prove it.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(10/07/2008). "Aerated (Turned) Windrow Composting" http://www.epa.gov/waste/conserve/rrr/composting/windrow.htm.
- North Carolina Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance(02/22/2005). "Composting Organics" http://www.p2pays.org/compost/CommercialComposting/CompostingOrganics.pdf.
- Environmental Research and Education Foundation(01/01/2007). "Landfill Covers" http://www.erefdn.org/educationact1/Landfill%20Covers.pdf.
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Fresh From Twitter: How to Compost … / Worm Farming Books
posted on January 18th, 2010 at 2:39 am
[...] How to Compost Outside the Home: Earth911.com (blog)by Trey Granger Let’s say you want to recycle organic waste b… http://bit.ly/7a3FY8 [...]
Chuck
posted on January 19th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Good article on composting. I am looking for more.
Red Worms
posted on January 22nd, 2010 at 9:33 am
Interest in Vermicomposting (composting with worms) is also growing. Cities are using it to handle sewage and other organic materials. Great article.
Worm Castings
posted on January 30th, 2010 at 9:40 am
Cities and d.o.t’s are now adding worm castings to their specs for roadways and parks because of the slow-release, which reduces runnoff. There’s plenty of garbage and horticulture waste for the cities to convert to compost ,whether by traditional composting or vermi-composting, that could be used as fertilizers, rather than purchasing expensive (and less eco-friendly) chemical fertilizers. . We are being pushed in this direction not only by the new eco awareness, but also by economics.
ray s. ayer
posted on February 16th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Aw, come on. Start your own compost program at your own home. Here’s how;
build Rays “five minute compost bin”. Get 4 wooden pallets, wire them together in your garden. Buy a compost fork (garden fork) leave it in the compost bin. Use the following copy-written formula (print with attribution)
One part green and two parts brown,
makes your organics turn into ground.
Add some water and some soil,
turning is the only toil.
So there you have it, the whole art and science of composting. Mixing in lots of brown leaves or chipped wood, corn stalks ect. Chopped up to finger size with a machette. (don’t add your fingers)
Green stuff is grass, & vegetables. Leave out meats and oils and macronie for the first year. When you leave the garden fork in the pile you wil; naturally turn it over whenever you add new raw materials.
No one is normally going to steal your compost fork, so it’s important to leave it in the pile. Mix in 10% food waste so it is not visable to neighbors or critters. Don’t compost only food waste you must have lots of leaves or wood chips for the formula to work. Now add a few shovels of dirt or old compost, manure etc. This acts as a microbe innoculant. It is the millions of microbes that do the work, by chewing down all your chopped up raw materials and excreting new raw material. Yep comost is simply microbe poop. Keep them as happy workers by adding water so that it all glistens, like a wrung out sponge. Think of them as pets. If they dry out they die. if you drown them they die. if you feed them well and water them they multiply and work for you. This system well take about a year to complete. You don;t need a container just a pile about 3-4′ tall and wide, to get critical mass to retain the heat of all them little buggers working their asses off. As it gets warmer from their activity they will work even faster for you and help to feed your Mother Earth.
A hint, plant tomatoes or squash at the edge of the bin or pile, the nutrients leachng out will feed these plants and hide the pile.
So just do it. When is the right time to start- tommorow. your Mother will be very happy with you.