Submitted By: Bart Carr (bart_carr@yahoo.com)
Challenge
Like many homes in Lafayette, we have a large, well landscaped front and back yard including grass lawns, shrubbery, lots trees, and a seasonal vegetable garden. All of this requires weekly maintenance producing yard waste for disposal. Using our 65 gallon yard waste recycling cart as a measure, our weekly generation of yard waste averages around 40 gallons per week during the summer months. I could use the weekly recycling service to haul this waste away, but the idea of sending my yard waste many miles to a distant compost facility (not to mention the fuel and other resources required to do this!) does not make sense. A far better solution is to be responsible for our own waste and recycle it by composting! Unlike other household recyclables which must be sent away for recycling, yard waste is easily recycled through composting and results in finished compost, an excellent soil amendment for my vegetable garden.
Solution Details
Home composting is really easy to do! I do two kinds of composting – traditional composting in two bins and worm composting. Both help me to recycle most of the organic waste produced around my home, including the yard and garden waste and selected food waste from the kitchen.
I have two compost bins in my backyard that are working throughout the year. One compost bin is a Smith & Hawken Biostack sold at reduced cost by the Contra Costa Solid Waste Authority (CCCSWA) in Walnut Creek. The other is a Presto home composter I purchased some years ago. My landscaper dumps fresh yard waste next to one of the compost bins. If most of it is very fresh material (like grass clippings), I will mix in some old leaves that I saved from the previous autumn. Mixing equal amounts of fresh and old material creates a mix of high nitrogen (fresh, moist yard waste) and high carbon (old, dry yard waste) materials to place in the compost bin. The 50/50 mix of carbon and nitrogen provides the ideal “diet’ for the bacteria and other decomposers who do the composting! I make sure that all of this material is nice and moist before mixing it into the yard waste already composting in my compost bin. (If I were starting out with an empty bin, I would try to have enough yard waste to almost fill the compost bin to the top!) Since I am adding new yard waste every week, you would think the compost bin would fill up quickly, but it doesn’t! This is because as decomposition takes place, the volume of material in the bin is reduced which creates room for more yard waste. Eventually, the bin will fill up but I have a second compost bin to use.
Once the bin is full, I will manage the composting process by aerating the contents once every two or three weeks. Compost aeration in key to successful composting. It is done by using a pitchfork or compost turning tool to agitate and mix the composting yard waste, adding new oxygen to the mix that will encourage faster decomposition. While aerating, I also check moisture content to make sure the composting material is staying moist. In addition to yard waste, I also add fruit and/or vegetable waste from the kitchen to compost. I always make sure it is well buried in the yard waste so that it doesn’t attract flies. In three to four months, all of the yard waste in the compost bins is transformed into finished compost. When composting is done, I can begin using the finished compost as a soil amendment or top dress around my yard or garden!
A second form of compost I use is worm composting (vermicomposting). I have three worm boxes that I keep on s shaded side of my house. Worm boxes are meant for fruit and vegetable scraps coming from the kitchen. I have a small collector pail under the kitchen sink and my family places all fruit and vegetable wastes as well as coffee grounds, and tea bags in it. This waste goes to the worm boxes where hundreds of small composting worms will eat it and turn it into worm "castings", another valuable soil amendment. Worms are a great way to compost because they work quickly and require little maintenance. However, always remember that they must be kept in a cool, shaded location and will only compost waste from the kitchen. Yard waste always goes to the outdoor compost bins!
Benefits & Payback
Between use of my compost bins and worm boxes, I estimate that my family and I recycle 95% of the organic (food and yard ) waste generated in our household. This provides us with both financial and environmental benefits.
Financial Benefits. Because of our efforts to compost and recycle, my four person family (plus dog and two birds) are able to use the smallest (and least expensive) garbage service available. I pay $16.99 per month for the 20 gallon "mini" cart service rather then $19.99 for the 32 gallon or $39.17 for the 64 gallon service. Additionally, I get $1.50 off my garbage bill every month because I am a certified composter with the central county waste authority! So I am saving $55 per year by composting which will buy quite a few coffees at Papillons!
Environmental Benefits. The environmental benefits are also important to me and my family. Yard waste that is collected from our curbs in Lafayette will either be trucked over a hundred miles to a compost facility in the central valley or it can be used as "Alternative Daily Cover" at a landfill. Neither of these results can be considered environmentally beneficial. Furthermore, any yard waste that ends up in a landfill will anaerobically decompose producing methane gas. Methane is one of the worst "greenhouse gases", being 23 times more damaging in our atmosphere then carbon dioxide. Our efforts to compost keeps our yard waste off the roads and out of landfills which provides a great benefit for the environment!
Informational Links
www.wastediversion.org/compostmoreinfo
www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Organics
www.composters.com
