Composting 101

Fall is here and with it comes our dilemma of what to do with all of our leaves. Last year, we bagged and let the city figure it out.

I have been thinking about our landfills more and more often and it seems silly to put all those leaves in plastic bags and let them sit in a landfill. I just read that plastic bags may take 100+ years to completely degrade. So, why are we filling them with leaves that can naturally decompose and become dirt?

Yep, we're making our own dirt now. Saturday afternoon, Mark put up a fenced area and raked all the leaves into the bin. Slowly, we'll add other organic matter (like kitchen scraps) and we'll get dirt in about a year. This is just one small way we can do our part to slow down the rate in which landfills are filling up. From the EPA: "Yard trimmings and food residuals together constitute 24 percent of the U.S. municipal solid waste stream. That's a lot of waste to send to landfills when it could become useful and environmentally beneficial compost instead!"



I may even look into biodegradable kitchen trash bags so I won't feel as guilty about my trash. No promises, just a thought. ;)