The Importance and Value of Composting

The lmportance and Value of Composting
Just as you can put plastic or glass aside for recycling, you can also put your food waste aside, and when combined with grass, leaves and twigs the resulting product is called compost, which can be used as a garden fertilizer.
Regardless of whether you have a garden, or whether you even have room to do composting at your home, there is significant benefit to keeping food waste out of the trash.
Did you know that in the average home as much as 25% to 30% of trash is composed of food waste? That means that for every four pounds of trash you throw out, one pound is likely compostable food scraps. Importantly, if food waste is not included in trash, there will be no food for rodents (e.g. rats, mice, squirrels, chipmunks) or even for birds such as pigeons and seagulls to scavenge. It also means one pound of food waste that is not going to the dump where it will end up producing methane gas, which is harmful to our atmosphere contributing to global warming.
Taking 2.5 pounds of food scraps per week, out of an assumed average of ten pounds of trash, results in 130 pounds less trash per year. Assuming twenty-two thousand families live in Peabody (US Census), that amounts to two million eight hundred sixty thousand pounds of garbage that could be recycled into compost and kept out of the trash per year. How many fewer rats do you think that translates to?
“A new law in California requires food waste to be composted.” “Now .... restaurants, grocery stores and people who eat will have to get on board. California's goal is to compost 75% of organics by 2025. The state estimates that will reduce greenhouse gases as much as taking a million cars off the road each year.” (NPR.org)
What is composting? Composting is a natural process that turns your food and yard waste into a soil improver for the garden. The EPA has the following definition: “Composting is a controlled, aerobic (oxygen-required) process that converts organic materials into a nutrient-rich soil amendment or mulch through natural decomposition. The end product is compost – a dark, crumbly, earthy-smelling material ...
You can compost at home using food scraps from your kitchen and dry leaves and woody material from your yard.”
Yes, as explained on the EPA website, you can do composting at home. Certainly it is beneficial to get garbage out of the trash since scavenging animals such as rodents (as in rats!), stray cats and dogs, and even birds such as pigeons and seagulls are always out looking for food. Plus those animals can carry and spread diseases.
The EPA website (https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting- home) is a very good place to find information and resources for getting started with do it yourself composting. It is not hard, and it is beneficial to the environment.
If you don’t have the time and space or inclination to do your own composting, there are other ways to recycle discarded food. For example, many towns in Essex County take advantage of the composting services of Black Earth Compost.
Black Earth Compost already works with many local communities and committees. “The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection offers a grant through the Sustainable Materials Recovery Program to help pay for compost bins and implement programs.
Black Earth is the Preferred Vendor in the towns of Lexington, Canton, Wakefield, Brookline, Newton and Belmont due to [their] excellent track record, very low pricing, and best use of material; turning into high quality compost for growing more food.”
The city of Salem has had a composting program (GreenSalem.com) for several years. On the latter website they have suggestions for a countertop composting, options for bringing your food waste to a central collecting station, a vermicomposting (using worms) option, in addition to participating in their Black Earth Compost program. “In 2015 alone, Salem diverted about 495 tons of organic waste from landfill or the incinerator. Between 2014 when the program first started and 2017, Salem has diverted about 840 tons of organic waste from landfill or the incinerator.”
The town of Danvers has a composting program, as do the towns of Wakefield, Swampscott, and Beverly. “The City of Beverly's Waste Reduction Committee launched an incentivized composting program for residents and businesses with Black Earth Compost in 2015. Today, over 1,350 community members participate in this opt-in program.” Even the state of Massachusetts promotes composting.
We hope you now know the value and importance of separating and removing food and other organic material from your trash, and we also hope that you will participate in a composting program to make both our city and the earth healthier and greener.
Written by Joe Riess, a member of Friends of GreenPeabody.