Did you know that the U.S. throws away 694 plastic bottles every second? Or that the average American produces 4.6 pounds of garbage every day. And an astonishing 42 billion pounds of food goes to waste every year.
These facts are jaw dropping and quite frankly appalling! I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love our planet Earth and want to keep it in its prime for many years decades to come. I try to do my best to limit waste, recycle and overall be conscience about how my decisions affect the plant. But there is even more I can do and should be doing and so should you.
That is why I am happy to be bringing you a four part series on how to reduce waste when you cook and in your home and overall promote a more environmentally friendly way of life.
Each week for the month of September, I will focus on different environmental areas, which include:
Week 1 – FYI: Composting
Week 2 – Tips on environmentally friendly cooking, cleaning, and shopping
Week 3 – Tips for planning and preparing an environmentally friendly party or event
Week 4 – Highlights from my own environmentally friendly dinner party
So first up composting. To be honest this is something that I currently don’t practice and really didn’t know much about until I started this project. But I have heard a lot about composting the last few years and have wanted to learn more about the subject.
What is it? Compost is plant ‘food’ made up of broken down rotten fruits, veggies, plants and leaves. It looks a lot like dirt, having a dark color, crumbly in texture, and having an earthy smell.
Why is it important? Composting is important because things like watermelon rinds, banana peels, etc. have a hard time ‘breaking down’ or decomposing in landfills due to all of the other trash. These food remnants also don’t burn well. However, if set aside and mixed with grass clippings, leaves, etc. these food items will begin to decompose and create compost which can then be used to nourish home gardens and thus helping to reduce landfill waste.
How to get started? Use a large container with a tight fitting lid (check out these compost bin bags). Place a layer of food waste in your compost container; avoiding meat or dairy waste. Place a layer of grass clippings, leaves, and additional yard waste over the food waste. In about 6 to 8 weeks your compost should be ready to add to gardens or flower beds. To speed up the composting process ‘stir’ or ‘turn’ the compost mixture daily making sure the compost mixture is slightly wet. Using these two techniques will help your compost be ready in about 4 weeks.
So do you compost? Do you have tips you can share? After sharing this information with Eric he is actually quite interested is starting our own compost bin. So I guess we will be giving this a try. Maybe I can post an update in the future??
Disclaimer: This post is one in a four part blog series about environmentally friendly party/event planning/cooking sponsored by Foodbuzz and GLAD, through the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program, as part of the GLAD “One Bag” event. All opinions are my own.