Composting With Hayley, Part One

Composting is one of the most effective ways to deal with waste, and not just food waste.

Here at Green Goddess, we use home compostable Earth Bags for our products and also have compostable dog poo bags available for purchase. These poo bags should be composted in a separate composter – more information on this is here.

It’s important to understand that a home compostable bag, packet or container will not compost in the regular rubbish that goes to landfill and unfortunately most cities in New Zealand do not pick up compostable materials as this article in Stuff explains.

The good news is, there are many easy ways to compost at home, as Trash Talking Mama, Hayley Crawford discusses here in her article.

Composting With Hayley, Part One

Previously I wrote about the repercussions of food waste on our environment, even contributing to climate change. This month’s edition and next will be about composting, with information that may surprise you.

Each year, Auckland households send about 90,000 tonnes of food scraps to landfills and the average household rubbish bag or bin is almost half filled with food waste, as well as an additional 10 percent green waste.

There is also a surprising amount of items that some would consider rubbish when they are actually compostable so if you are composting where possible you could significantly reduce your landfill waste – by more than 50%.

You don’t need to overthink composting – some people are very careful to find the perfect balance of brown versus green matter but don’t let that put you off, especially if you are just starting out. The easiest and most effective compost I have ever had was a hole in the ground at the back of my garden which took two minutes to dig.

Composting need not only be considered by those with vege gardens seeking a great fertiliser, you can just be composting in order to reduce landfill waste and the harmful methane gases that are produced when organic matter decomposes in landfill. Worm bins are also a great option for breaking it down faster.

Outdoor containers for compost are easily made or you can purchase them in stores – some even tumble and mix with the turn of a handle. Or if you don’t have the space for a compost outdoors, then consider a Bokashi, which is an easy indoor, airtight system that ‘pickles’ your food waste into a liquid fertiliser.

In composting part two I will list some surprising things that you can compost including cotton buds and condoms!

Hayley