Why Compost?

The organic waste you put back into the environment can be used by other living things. This way, instead of going to a landfill or garbage-burning plant, your wastes become valuable resources.

Yard waste and food scraps make up 20% to 30% of garbage!! Many landfills are filling up and closing. Finding places to put garbage is a big problem. By composting yard and kitchen waste, you send less garbage to landfills.

Gardeners use compost. Compost allows the soil to hold more water and adds nutrients to the soil. Flowers, vegetables, trees, shrubs, house plants, lawns, and container gardens grow better in soil mixed with compost.

Composting provides an almost constant source of free fertilizer and soil conditioner. The organic materials in the compost help your plants grow by loosening the soil and allowing better root entry. The texture of compost improves the solid ability to hold water and can reduce your water bills. Compost has all the nutrients that plants require, unlike chemical fertilizers. Through regular use of compost you can greatly reduce or even get rid of the need for chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, which saves money and reduces contamination of our waterways and drinking water.

Composting is nature's way of recycling, and it happens to all organic matter with no human effort involved. Breakdown of organic matter depends on temperature, oxygenation, and water/humidity. Carbon and nitrogen levels are also detrimental to composting. Nitrogen-enriched fresh vegetable scraps and fresh grass clippings, known as greens, and carbon-enriched dried leaves, bark, twigs, and hay, known as browns, are layered, with one part greens and three parts browns. Compost can be ready to use in as little as 2 months.

Overall, the amount of municipal solid waste (trash) created by Americans rose 60 percent in the 25 years between 1980 and 2005, climbing to 246 million tons of trash. That figure (computed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) refers to waste before recycling is taken into consideration; recycling and composting recovered 79 million tons of trash. Approximately 62 percent of yard waste is composted. In the 15 years between 1990 and 2005, landfill waste has decreased by 9 million tons, and it continues to decrease yearly. There are over 35,000 composting programs in operation in the U.S.

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