Composting 101

As you read this, you are composting.  Somewhere in your insides, maybe in the stomach, liver, or intestines, your body is breaking down food, converting into energy, and composting.  It’s not gross; it’s natural.  If we didn’t compost, what entered our mouths would exit at the other end looking much like it did on the way in.  (Now, that’s gross.  And uncomfortable.)

Composting in the body and out is the process of returning discarded matter like food scraps to the earth—you might consider it recycling nature—and though it took an expert to explain it to me, it doesn’t take one to do it. 

Nick Esposito’s relationship with compost began in childhood with a bucket of slop behind his mother’s house.  The relationship matured (along with his passion for urban agriculture and sustainable living) to where he and his five roommates generate just one bag of trash per week.  But, how did Esposito become such a master composter?  By thinking like a generalist rather than a specialist.  

To a specialist, composting serves but one purpose: to make soil.  To a generalist, composting may create soil, but it may also be used to manage food waste, as a source of energy, and as an educational tool.  Composting for generalists is a way of perpetuating the cycle of nature and living sustainably. 

The science of composting, Esposito explains, involves the natural reactions of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, heat, and bacteria. This process can be helped along by the introduction of worms (Red Wigglers).  Worms are the planet’s most renowned composters eating their body weight each day and producing nutrient rich castings (excrement) and juices (compost tea) ideal for growing and fertilizing.  

Other than worms, the key to composting is maintaining a 70-30 ratio between carbon and nitrogen.  The proper carbon ratio is achieved by way of brown matter bedding (dried leaves, grass, peat, paper, newsprint, wood chips, twigs and small sticks, etc.) and soil.  The nitrogen portion, or green matter, is comprised of your food scraps (everything but meat and dairy). The brown matter facilitates the chemical breakdown of green matter.  Maintaining the balance is necessary in order to avoid the common pitfalls of composting like pests and stench.   (If your bin starts to stink, your worms are likely overwhelmed. Remember: one pound of worms per pound of food.)  

By choosing a method of composting that works with your lifestyle and living space, anyone can do it successfully (and everyone should).  For suburbanites or rural residents, a corner of the yard or garden will work nicely.  Urban dwellers that are restricted by concrete, space, and neighbors, may opt for tumblers or homemade compost bins. 

The ideal temperature for a compost bin is 160 degrees.  If your ratio between brown and green matter is correct, your bin will create its own thermal heat and the necessary amount of bacteria.  Though composting bins are relatively low maintenance, they should be checked to ensure the worms are eating well and nature is running a balanced course.   Composting with worms will take several months.  

Even if you’re not a gardener, your composting efforts can go a long way toward creating a sustainable environment: Farmers and restaurants are using compost as a source of renewable energy and as Esposito proves in his own home, composting can drastically reduce the amount of waste produced by a household.  Composting also presents an opportunity to make more conscious (sustainable) decisions in the grocery store. 

Studies have shown that sixteen percent of the energy consumed in the US is used to produce food.  On average, we waste twenty-five percent of the food we buy each year.  If you’re not appalled by this waste of food or the impact energy usage has on our overall safety and well-being, consider how much cash you’re wasting each time you shovel food from the fridge shelves into a trash bag (an average of $600 per household each year). 

And if all that isn’t enough to convince you to get down with your red wigglers and compost, consider one last thing: the nauseating aroma coming from the food waste decomposing in the bed of trash trucks.  Now, wouldn’t it be nice not to smell that on a hot, humid day?