How To Start Composting at Home

Composting has a range of benefits–for yourself, and for the planet. While composting alone won’t eliminate food waste (in order for that to happen there needs to be widespread policy change), it’s a step in the right direction. Plus, it embodies what we’re all about here at This Green Lifestyle: taking realistically small steps towards a greener lifestyle.

So if you’re curious about composting, but unsure about where to start, this is the article for you. Here we’ll break composting down in a few simple steps so that you can get started today! All you need to get started (besides motivation) is some kind of bowl or container to hold the food scraps that you collect over the course of a day.

While you can get pretty scientific about composting, it’s important to start with some basic steps. Once you’ve built up momentum, feel free to research and experiment to find the system that works for you!

Photo by Julietta Watson

What are the benefits of composting?

While the benefits of composting are manifold, we’ll break it down into two main categories: benefits for the planet, and benefits for you.

While the benefits for the planet are important and by no means insignificant, we recognize that there’s no sustainable way to live a green lifestyle unless there are tangible benefits for your own life, too. In fact, it’s widely known that it’s nearly impossible to care about the eventual effects of climate change, simply because our immediate needs will always take precedence.

Benefits for the planet

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is one of the most important steps in fighting global warming. Unfortunately, it’s estimated that about 6-8% of our emissions worldwide comes from food waste. Reducing the amount of food that gets wasted can therefore significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

While composting is not the only way to reduce food waste (developing better supply chains, donating excess food, etc. are other key steps in this process), it’s critical in keeping food waste out of the landfill. Unlike scraps that get broken down by the natural processes we refer to as composting, organic waste in the landfill is broken down by anaerobic bacteria that release methane, which is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Compost also plays an important role in soil health. Soil that’s amended with compost is not only richer in nutrients, but it boasts better water retention (and therefore less runoff), supports increased biodiversity, and has a higher capacity for carbon sequestration, further reducing greenhouse gasses.

Benefits for you

It goes without saying that your life would benefit immensely from a healthy planet where temperatures aren’t rising, freak weather and storms aren’t common, and thousands of species aren’t going extinct. But, beyond the long-term benefits of sustainability, there are some more immediate ones too.

When you turn your food scraps into compost, and then use that compost to amend your soil, you’re boosting plant and soil health. Compost not only helps retain moisture and reduce runoff, but it retains and delivers more nutrients to plants. This boosts their overall health and resiliency and can lead to increased plant productivity.

Additionally, composting at home is easy and can save you money; instead of buying expensive fertilizers or soil amendments, simply use your own compost! Finally, composting is fun to do, good for your mental health, and a great tool to use to teach younger generations about climate change and soil health.

Composting 101: how to start in 6 easy steps

Whether you’re a complete composting beginner, need a refresher, or are just curious to learn more, this section will walk you through the simple steps to a successful home composting system. While these steps are general and apply to any home set-up, composting in an apartment requires a few additional considerations, which you can read more about here.

Choose a system that works for your space

First and foremost, you’ll want to decide on a composting system that will work for you and your space. As you look at different options, you should ask yourself the following questions:

• What’s my budget?

• How much space do I have?

• How much food waste do I (and my housemates) produce weekly?

• Do I live in an urban area?

• How much effort am I willing to put into composting?

Don’t worry too much if you don’t have precise answers to some of these questions. If you have a garden, consider whether you want a compost tumbler, pile, or bin. If you live in a space with no yard, such as an apartment, an indoor system such as bokashi or vermicomposting might be more suitable for you.

Select a spot

Once you have your composting system, choosing a spot in which to keep it should be fairly straightforward. For an outdoor system, consider a spot that’s out of the way, perhaps along a fence, but not too far from the house so that it’s easy to drop off food scraps. For a smaller indoor system, you might be able to fit it under the sink, in the garage, or in another inconspicuous free spot around the home.

Furthermore, if you live in a particularly dry and hot area you might consider keeping your compost out of direct sunlight. Compost piles need to maintain a higher level of humidity in order for things to break down quickly, so keeping it in a shady spot will prevent unnecessary moisture loss.

In the end, organic matter will break down no matter where you keep your compost, so keep it simple and find a spot that’s convenient for you.

Photo by Chandra Oh

Start collecting scraps

Now that you’ve made it past the hard part, you’re ready to start brewing up some compost! Find a bowl, cut an empty milk jug in half, or get an aesthetically pleasing countertop compost bin to start collecting your food scraps in.

Next, toss in banana peels, apple cores, vegetable ends (and tops), and even leftovers! While it’s generally recommended to avoid adding anything with meat, oil, and dairy, these are okay in small amounts. Too much, however, could attract rodents to your compost.

Build your compost mix with scraps and more

Once you’ve accumulated some food scraps, you can add them to your compost system. One thing to remember here is that there needs to be a balance of “greens” and “browns” (or: nitrogen and carbon).

Greens are nitrogen-rich, think: wet. These include food scraps, coffee grounds, and grass clippings. Browns, on the other hand, are carbon-rich and usually dry. Twigs, hay, sawdust, dry leaves, and cardboard are all considered browns.

Browns are important because they soak up liquid and prevent your compost from getting too soggy and stinky. A general rule of thumb is 2 parts browns to 1 part greens. But use your senses: compost shouldn’t smell bad; if the smell is off and your compost seems excessively wet, add more brown material such as shredded newspaper. On the other hand, if it seems dry and things aren’t breaking down, add more greens.

Aerate and wait

One more thing that your compost pile needs lots of? Air! You’ll want to aerate your compost regularly, once a week or every few weeks for best results. This is easy with a small system; simply stir or flip the contents. A larger system, however, might require some serious effort with the help of a garden fork or pitchfork. If you have a pile, you can even put a PVC pipe with holes drilled into it, or a roll of chicken wire, in the middle of the pile to provide passive airflow to your compost.

As you wait and the compost builds up, you might start to notice that certain things break down faster than others. While this is perfectly normal, you can take certain steps to help things break down at a similar rate.

For example, you can chop up tough materials such as citrus peels into smaller pieces, or avoid adding too much of one thing. If you eat a lot of avocados, you might notice that avocado pits take a longer time to break down. While you can sift these out later, you can also experiment with trying to grow your own avocado trees!

Harvest!

There is no one timeline for every kind of compost system. How long your compost takes to break down depends on a lot of factors, from volume to moisture to weather, and more. On average, you can expect it to take up to 3-6 months, but you’ll know for sure when it looks dark and loamy, and smells earthy!

When you’ve determined your compost is finished, and you’re ready to harvest it, it can be as simple as taking a shovel and moving it from the compost pile (or bin, etc.) to your garden or potted plants. If there’s still larger chunks such as avocado pits and twigs, you can either leave them and let the garden do the rest, or strain them out with a homemade compost sifter.

At this point, you’re ready to start all over again! For added efficiency, you can set up two compost systems so that one can be left alone to finish while you fill up the other.

Why are you interested in composting? What’s been your biggest challenge so far? Let us know below!