Why buy a bin and start Composting?
Composting is an inexpensive, natural process that transforms your kitchen and garden waste into a valuable and nutrient rich food for your garden. It's easy to make and use.
Do your bit to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill. Even for households that are already composting, new research has found that almost half of the food waste in their rubbish bins could have been put in the compost bin.
Did you know, composting at home for just one year can save global warming gases equivalent to all the CO2 your kettle produces annually, or your washing machine produces in three months?
We're often asked "Why do I need to compost when my waste will break down in landfill anyway?"
When waste is sent to landfill, air cannot get to the organic waste. Therefore as the waste breaks down it creates a harmful greenhouse gas, methane, which damages the Earth's atmosphere. However, when this same waste is composted above ground at home, oxygen helps the waste to decompose aerobically which means no methane is produced, which is good news for the planet. And what's more, after nine to twelve months, you get a free fertiliser for your garden and plant pots to keep them looking beautiful.
Composting is an inexpensive, natural process that transforms your kitchen and garden waste into a valuable and nutrient rich food for your garden. It's easy to make and use.
Do your bit to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill. Even for households that are already composting, new research has found that almost half of the food waste in their rubbish bins could have been put in the compost bin.
Did you know, composting at home for just one year can save global warming gases equivalent to all the CO2 your kettle produces annually, or your washing machine produces in three months?
We're often asked "Why do I need to compost when my waste will break down in landfill anyway?"
When waste is sent to landfill, air cannot get to the organic waste. Therefore as the waste breaks down it creates a harmful greenhouse gas, methane, which damages the Earth's atmosphere. However, when this same waste is composted above ground at home, oxygen helps the waste to decompose aerobically which means no methane is produced, which is good news for the planet. And what's more, after nine to twelve months, you get a free fertiliser for your garden and plant pots to keep them looking beautiful.
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Signing UpStep 1: Getting The Right Bin
Getting the right bin for your garden is essential. you need to find a bin that will blend in with your garden but at the same time do the job it is there for.
If your in the UK try one of these bins. there are cheaper then anywhere else because a company subsidises the cost. http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting/buy_a_bin/index.html
If you are in the US Wall Mart do good deals.
If your in the UK try one of these bins. there are cheaper then anywhere else because a company subsidises the cost. http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting/buy_a_bin/index.html
If you are in the US Wall Mart do good deals.
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For a really quick and easy worm composting bin idea, visit:
www.theruralindependent.com/
You can put cardboard on your heap, this encourages woodlice and helps prevent the green soggy mass problem.
1) Meat: There really is no reason for meat not to be put in a bin, especially a covered one such as in your post. For uncovered bins, burying meat at least 12" under fine particle carbon matter, like saw dust, greatly reduces the likelihood that your bin will be raided by animals. As for the issue of meat decaying, it breaks down very quickly, and does not smell if processed as above.
2) Cooked vegetables, I am at a loss about this one. There is not a single thing wrong with cooked vegetables. Now, perhaps if you put a lot of salt on them, that might be problematic (though not a deal breaker) but certainly there is no need to exclude them from a compost pile.
3) I hear this one a lot. Again, the central stated issues are the same with meat. And again, the remediations are the same. Bury for odor control. NOt that it is particularly necessary, as it loses any odor quickly in a pile, often within hours.
4) Diseased plants all depends on the disease, and the type of pile. If it is a hot pile, pretty much any plant matter can be used, even ones with serious infections, as the disease organisms are killed in the pile. WIth a cold pile, a 1 year retention often kills the rest.
For common diseases like molds and powdery mildew, these are not going to be transfered by compost anyway.
5)This one is the most common one, and the most misunderstood. It is often rephrased more generally as "carnivore feces." However you phrase it, its prohibition from the pile is not based on any scientific foundation. The oft-cited cause (which seems reasonable on the surface) is disease, especially E. coli. The response to this is manifold. First, the PRIMARY vector for E. coli poisoning is NOT animal feces at all, but rather plants. Think of all the major national E. coli events. 100% have been due to plants, tomatoes, jalapeños, spinach. Also, cow dung has huge amounts of E.coli. so allowing cow manure and not dog manure is simply silly on this basis.
Now on to the big one. Cat poop. The (unfortunately) common response here is the dreaded toxoplasmosis. However, this is really NOT an issue. First, the parasitic disease organism only is expelled in cat feces in the first two weeks after initial infection. As most cats contract their TP infection as kittens, this is almost never a concern. Second, most people with cats have already been exposed, and are immune. Third, the only people who are in any kind of danger are those with very weakened immune systems, or women in a three week window during pregnancy. At all other times, it is impossible to transmit the organism to the fetus. A major study was done about TP, and initially they used cats as a vector to examine TP infection. But what they found surprisingly was that they found NO evidence that ANYONE ever transmitted the infection through this route, so they were forced to redesign the experiment. Interestingly, one of the most common vectors for transmission is pica, often in the form of eating dirt. Surely you are not proposing to ban dirt from what is essentially, dirt.
On to diapers (I am in the US afterall.) Certainly disposable diapers, with all their plastic, would be a problem, as would be cloth diapers, as well as being stupid and wasteful. But there are disposable varieties that compost well, and I can't think of a single serious reason for banning them from a pile.
As for perennial weeds, that is such a waste of great OM. While you might want to avoid the seed heads if you are not hot composting (heat kills them fine) or the untreated roots of such things as binweed, they are easily treated by just letting them sit out in the sun for a day or two. Then just compost them as usual.
I have been composting for decades, ran a little, homemade humanure composting toilet, and ran several large and small bins in the middle of a large, urban area, and other than a few misinformed city officials, I never had any problem, other than WAY too much compost to really use on the small garden I had on my roof.
For a good source of more accurate information, you might want to try reading Joseph Jenkins' "Humanure Handbook." It is even available free online from here:
http://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/Humanure_Handbook_all.pdf .
L
And even better, it would be great if everybody composts their kitchen scraps and garden trimmings.