When I live off the internet, composting is part of my life for five years. Of course, we are not only composting, but I know a lot about the reasons for making healthy compost. Usually, it's a lot of work – now I live in a city and I don't do that myself. To be clear, I still believe in compost, especially when you consider that everyone in the United States throws away about 200 pounds of food each year. Food waste in landfills can do things that are not good, such as releasing methane and contributing to climate change. In compost, old food is done well, such as improving the soil and acting as a carb sink.
Now that more municipal roadside composting programs exist, millions of people have an easy way to deal with food waste. But if you live like me in a place where compost is not yet inhabited in the whole city, you have two options: composting at home, is there a machine to help you, or do what I do and pay you to composting for you.
How to make fertilization at home
Think of compost as a construction holder, throwing in food and returning to something you can throw in the garden in a few weeks, but the reality requires more time, space and energy, which is tempting. For me, the hardest part of compost is the consistency required. At least a few times a week, any active compost needs to be tilted, including adding, turning it, watering in a dry climate or shielding excess rainwater. In addition to time, home composting requires space and materials to build the bin. You also need regular “brown” or carbon-rich materials such as dry leaves, untreated paper, cardboard, wood chips or wood chips.
Many people (more knowledge than I) put the how key on this topic. I'll follow Mini Agriculture Guide for Compostingbut these online guides will also provide you with great service:
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EPA: Provides a high-level overview of the process and includes a handy chart containing examples of green and brown materials.
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ILSR: A deeper guide with illustrations and the reasoning behind each step.
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NMSU: Scientific reference with multiple methods and troubleshooting suggestions.
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Joe Gardener: Multi-page, highly detailed PDF by Joe Lamp'l, host of PBS and DIY Network Gardening.
Each source provides the same basic advice: build a bin, collect food waste, store brown material, maintain ratios, monitor and modify moisture and aeration levels, and then let the full stack complete for six to eight weeks (so, yes, two piles of piles are usually required).
As you can see, compost correct Not as easy as breaking waste into bins and letting time deal with the rest. Of course, if the process attracts you (and yes Very interesting) This is not a drawback. Especially in the yard, especially gardeners, they are excellent candidates for keeping healthy piles – not to mention, they use the most of the finished product. But people without yards are unfortunate (unless they are willing to host an indoor worm farm).
Kitchen composting machine
Calling them “synthetics” is a wrong name because these devices don't actually create compost – this takes weeks of a microbial process. Instead, these devices crushed and dehydrated food create a odorless material that is much larger in size. You can even include meat and dairy products – the advantages of home compost heaps that are not usually recommended for animal products. As for what comes out, it can be added to your backyard pile, scattered in the garden, added to houseplants or thrown into a green bin or garbage – here it will take up less space and won't smell anything.
I haven't tested any of these devices yet, but after researching from an informed synthesizer perspective, I think the pros and cons of some of the more popular devices on the market.
grind (USPS pickups are $40 to $65 per month, $30 to $50 per month, no pickups)
I like that the factory provides solutions to the substances it produces, and that it is large enough to accommodate the waste that the average family may generate in a few weeks. Instead of buying the machine directly, you signed up for a subscription that includes the “ground” of the mill bin and USPS pickups. Add food throughout the day, automatically dehydrate and mix cycles every night. … Once satisfied, you pour the contents into a prepaid box and ship it to the Mill facility in Washington, where you turn the ground into chicken food.
You can also keep it on your own backyard chickens, add them to a compost bin, or sprinkle them in the yard (rarely) into the compost, where the water will begin the actual compost process. If you go this route, you will pay $30 or $50 per month, depending on whether you pay annually or monthly payment for the bin itself. For mills and pickups on the ground, you will pay an extra $10 per month or $15 per month.
Lomi ($828)
Lomi also chops and dehydrates your scrap. The device is smaller than the factory, so you may have to empty it every few days. It offers three modes, one of which is the growth mode, using small capsules of probiotics called lomi Pods to create “plant food” in about 20 hours. Lomi recommends mixing the results with conventional soil at a ratio of 1 to 10.
If you have a yard, it's easy to add a little bit here and there to maintain the ratio, and if you're an apartment resident with houseplants you can mix a small amount of soil together. But the end product can only be used as cautious as fertilizer, so you may need to do other things with excess. Lomi recommends adding excess compost to your compost, if your city offers a curbside compost pickup or throwing it into a trash, put it in a green trash where it takes up less space and won't smell.
Reencle ($499)
Reencle is as big as a mill box and involves microorganisms in processes like Lomi. You can buy it directly or rent it for $30 a month, but that doesn't include the results. I love that this Reencle is essentially a bunch of alive fermentation that uses low-calorie, grinder and regenerated bacteria populations to break down your food waste.
Add the debris “food” pile every day, and when it's full you should only remove half of it, while the rest can reproduce more bacilli. Likewise, the material can be used as a plant food or fertilizer, unlike standard compost. Reencle recommends placing the by-product to the soil at a quarter and letting the mixture sit for five days before adding to the monster and the garden.
Why You Should Consider Compost Services
DIY home composting is a lot of work. Desktop machines are expensive, noisy and sometimes unreliable as users say. Both of these methods allow you to figure out how to handle the by-products, whether it’s finished compost for the bin or the original compost for the appliance dehydration. This is great for gardeners – the compost makes the plants happy. Others may find themselves in trouble with a bunch of delightful black gold, nowhere to speak of.
Home composting also doesn’t allow you to make use of compostable cutlery, bags, and to-do items. Companies like material compost make cups, plates and utensils, compost in commercial compost facilities about a year (but not everyone will collapse in the home pile). The breakdown time frame will certainly exceed the centuries required for plastic forks to degrade. The substance can even make compost kitchen garbage bags surprisingly replace plastic.
In cities where municipal compost exists, many restaurants have begun offering compostable hosted containers. Not only does this greatly reduce the use of plastic, but people can also throw away unwanted leftovers and boxes into the trash. Of course, not everyone lives in cities with municipal composting services (I don’t). That's why I pay for local services, and I recommend doing so.
Most subscription-based composting pickup services work the same way: monthly fees, and they provide you with buckets and lids. You can fill it with the rest of your time and set it on your front porch/step/bend. They collect your buckets and provide you with a fresh bucket every week, biweekly or monthly. The waste is then composted on a large scale and it will be sold to people in the local farm or community.
Each service has different rules on what you can add, but most services can throw everything related to food and food, including meat, bones, dairy and fruit pits. You can also usually include coffee filters, pizza boxes, houseplants, BPI certified compostable plastics and tissues (no cleaning products). All services require you to remove the sticker and then pull out the staple from the tea bag.
I arranged a pick-up service every other Tuesday. Is the food smelly in the bucket for two weeks? That's true. To help you, we keep the bucket firmly outside. I put the jar on the countertop and fill it with debris all day and empty it when it is full or starts to smell. I also keep the old food in the refrigerator until the day of collection.
Of course, these services are everywhere, with prices ranging from $20 to $40 per month, so this is not a universal solution. I pay $22 for two pickups per month and look at the cost in time: I spend over two hours a month to maintain compost, so if I estimate the labor force at $12 per hour, which is the minimum wage in my state, the expense is worth it.
I also like tips like getting a “free” compost bag twice a year and once the faces start pouring in, there is a place to put down our annual jack lanterns. For my avocado pit, it's much better than the eternal ending in a landfill.
Sample compost service in the largest market in the United States
Modern technology makes these services easier to pop up in more cities. Registration is done online and most payments are automatic. My driver told me that they optimize their pickup routes using the Stop Suite app, send text reminders and handle other customer service features. Compost may be as old as dirt, but the way we create it is brand new.
Of the 20 largest metro areas in the United States, nine have or will have municipal operations composting collection programs. I spent some time in Seattle and most homes have three collection boxes: garbage, recycling and compost. This is by far the easiest and cheapest way. However, if you don’t live in one of those nine places with city operations, you have to take the paid route. Here is a list of community compost services available in 11 major metro areas:
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New Jersey: Garden State Compost, Neighborhood Compost
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Chicago: Wastenot composting, urban canopy, collective resource compost
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Dallas: Recycling Revolution
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Houston: Moon composting, zero waste Houston
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Washington, DC: Composite staff, senior compost
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Philadelphia: Mother Compost, Round Compost, Bennett Compost
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Atlanta: Great Possum Compost, Compost Now
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Miami: Compost for Life, Repairable
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Phoenix: R.City
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Detroit: Midtown Compost, Wasteland
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Tampa: Costa delectable on the Sol
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Albuquerque (the service I use): small green water bucket
This article originally appeared on Engadget
