EcoLiving Ideas

By Jessie Mee on Jul 30, 2008

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Landfills represent many problems for our country; they produce harmful chemicals that leach into groundwater, release methane gas—a greenhouse gas 20 times as strong as carbon dioxide—into the atmosphere in staggering quantities, compromise delicate ecosystems, and take up hundreds of acres of land across the country. We produce around 250 million tons of waste per year in the US, and now realize that the space for all that trash is running out. And unfortunately, most alternatives to landfills cause environmental problems of their own; incineration, for example, requires lots of energy and produces highly polluting and potentially harmful emissions.

Although this problem is relatively well-known, many people are not aware of how much landfill space could be saved by simply composting food and yard waste. This organic material can account for as much as 40% of landfill space. In other words, if everyone in the US began composting their food and yard waste, then around 40% less space would be needed for landfills per year. Composting is a relatively simple chore for people lucky enough to have a backyard, but what about apartment-dwellers? Fortunately, people without a yard can use indoor composters to keep their food scraps out of landfills. There is a wide assortment of types of composting bins. Some bins require electricity, while others rely entirely on worms (‘vermicomposting’), but all types can produce beautiful, rich soil without too much time, effort or smell. All methods do require some learning—for health reasons, not all food waste can be composted—but the results will be worth the outcome: you will never need to buy potting soil again, your houseplants will be their happiest, your friends and family with yards will thank you, and you will feel great about doing your part for the environment.

http://tinychoices.com/2008/01/24/four-ways-to-compost-indoors/

http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/smallscalecomposting.htm

http://www.howtocompost.org/default.asp

http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/compost.cfm

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