Every gardener knows how enriching and fertilizing compost can be, right? A few simple compost bins, set up especially for your kitchen waste compost at home, will help your plants flourish and also save the planet from unnecessary carbon emission. The planet earth has been putting up with countless tons of waste for quite some while now. With all kinds of plastic, metals, radiation waste, and other imaginable and unimaginable substances, the planet surface has become clogged up. It also has started overflowing with various waste materials that can be otherwise transformed into useful materials. Being a responsible citizen, you too would have thought about eradicating this issue and helping the planet earth find some breathable space. Well, the good news is that there are a few ways that can help your beloved planet last a bit longer and become a bit fresher and cleaner. Recycling, reusing, and reducing are the most preached ways, but luckily there is a better way that you can start implementing in your house. Additionally, as a good wisher of the planet, you will be pleased to know that this method will help decrease the carbon footprint of managing waste, and also recycling!
The method, known as composting, is a boon for all households with kitchens and helps them create a wondrous soil that acts like a magic booster for plants. Compost is made from kitchen waste like vegetable scraps, fruit peels, rotten or cooked food, and helps minimize global pollution while helping your kitchen garden bloom like a fairy forest!
Benefits of kitchen composting
- Recycling is a popular method to reduce waste. Recyclable materials such as glass bottles or tin cans when come in contact with a contaminated bottle or waste such as kitchen scraps, the whole batch becomes unrecyclable. As you separate your kitchen wastes from other recyclable wastes, you facilitate recycling.
- Kitchen wastes given for waste disposal in a plastic bag release a much more dangerous gas than carbon dioxide. The gas is known as methane, and it is a potent greenhouse gas. Hence, the otherwise notably useful kitchen waste is lost to a plastic bag and its ill effects.
- A family of four will produce an average of 1000 kgs of kitchen waste. The number can be drastically lowered to less than 100 kgs only if the waste is composted correctly.
- Around 85% of all waste from a household is kitchen waste. Further, this is then thoughtlessly discarded in bins using plastic bags that further clog up the planet and do not facilitate any waste management systems. But as you start your kitchen deposit bin, you can help lower the energy and resources required to dispose of waste and also help beings that are severely affected by human waste disposal systems.
- Composting kitchen waste reduces carbon footprint and hence can help lower greenhouse gas emissions and global temperature scales.
- Kitchen compost is a wonderful, all-natural fertilizer and conditioner for your soil, and you can use it for 100% organic produce.
How to begin kitchen composting?
First, you need to know what waste can be composted and what cannot be.
Kitchen waste that you can decompose:-
- All kinds of vegetable scraps.
- Fruit peels. (both vegetables and fruits can be decomposed even if they get spoiled and moldy)
- Grains, noodles, biscuits, bread, etc
- Cooked grains can be composted too.
- Eggs.
Kitchen waste that cannot be composted:-
- Meats, bones, and other animal products
- The dairy produces animal fats.
- Fish products and animal waste
- Greasy and oily foods.
Animal products can not be composted easily, smell terrible, and attract plenty of flies, rodents. Hence, it is not a suitable choice for home composting bins.
Select your composting area and bin: Choose an area in your home where you will set your composting bin. You could keep the composting bin in an isolated area of your backyard, terrace, balcony, etc. or a bit separated from the living compound as you might not be a big fan of the composting smell. If you live in a small space, you can begin composting in your kitchen!
Then find a bucket, dustbin, wooden crate, earthen, or cement pots as your kitchen waste composter. You can also make use of a worm bin or a particular caddy compost bin that facilitates composting in apartments and other small homes. These do not allow any foul odor to escape into your living space. Having a small space should not hinder your efforts to help mother nature anyway!
How to compost kitchen scraps?
Prepping your compost bin: Worm composting bins can be used anytime in the year and should be kept at a warm spot for easy kitchen waste composts at home. It would be best if you merely had red wiggler worms to begin composting, which can be ordered online.
Fun fact: Vermicompost (kitchen composting using worms) is five times more nourishing for plants than fertile soils! Suppose you chose a regular container, drill or make holes in the container. Doing this will allow fresh air to circulate through your composted soil and assist through the process. Then add a layer of regular soil to the bottom of your newly set up compost bin.
Pit composting: If you have sufficient space to initiate a pit compost, you can begin making larger composting units that will provide you with an excellent soil conditioner for years to come. Dig up a hole in your backyard or other space of 12 to 24 inches in depth. There already is a soil present, so you need not add any additional soil layers.
Begin composting kitchen waste! Your compost bin or compost pit is now ready to begin composting. Begin with adding a layer of greens, which is vegetable, fruit, and other eatables leftover. As you add a layer a couple of inches thick, add a layer of brown material: dry leaves, newspapers, waste papers, and crushed eggshells. Brown and green matter alone cannot make the ideal soil compost. A mixture of the above helps in getting the optimal balance of compost soil. Do turn the soil with a shovel or scoop and let the soil mix. You can add other layers as usual. If your compost smells, you can add more brown matter and add water if it runs too dry. Worm bin composting is a careful stacking of worm trays where you add a bedding and kitchen scraps. As most tray at the bottom gets full, begin with the second tray. Worms continue migrating upwards at the beginning of a new tray. The vermicompost and the fertilizer gets collected at the bottom layers of the worm bin.
Here are a few products to begin your kitchen waste composting today itself:
Worm Farming - Creating Compost at Home With Vermiculture
Beginning successful vermicompost set up in your home is easy, but there are quite a few things that you can get wrong. If you are not entirely sure about how to compost kitchen scraps and use it for the kitchen composting or how to start a backyard vermiculture compost, this handy book can help you. The book has all the information ranging from moisture levels to the ideal soil mix and other beneficial knowledge that you might require in your composting needs.
Worm Farm Accessory Kit for Red Wiggler Composting Bins
Worm culture and composting is a reasonably easy job considering you are an expert and know everything that there is to know. The added necessity of turning the compost on time, checking the moisture of the soil, and other instruments and tools that can make kitchen composting a bit easier for you.
WORX WG430 13 Amp Foldable Bladeless Electric Leaf Mulcher
Storing the leaves in the fall season for a year-round composting can be a bit hassle-some considering you will need a lot of space to store the leaves. Also, decomposting whole leaves can take much more time to compost leaves than the shredded leaves. The Worx leaf mulcher will reduce 11 bags worth of leaves into just 1 bag that will make a nourishing conditioner for your soil. The electric mulcher is less polluting than any gas-operated leaf mulcher.
FCMP Outdoor Roto Tumbling Composter
The worry of rotting food in your backyard, excessive smell, pests, and vermins can be too much. You sure will not want your house smelling like a dump yard! But if you use this Roto tumbling composter, you can compost without a single extra thought. Merely keep the tumbler in a sunny area, add a layer of soil, and start adding your compost kitchen matter. Give the tumbler 5-6 good turns, and your worries of turning the compost, again and again, are gone! The container provides excellent aeration and also is BPA free to ensure quality compost.
Worm Factory 360 Worm Composting Bin
Vermicompost is one of the most nutritional composts for your soil. Using the Worm Factory 360 worm composting bin, you can easily manage your kitchen scraps and make compost for your kitchen garden, backyard plants, etc. This worm composting bin is a four tray size bin, which can be expanded to eight trays. You get a very informative book and the bin to help you understand your red wiggler worms and get the most benefit out of your composting bin. You also get a worm tea collector and spigot with this worm bin!
Green Gardenia Green Bin with Plastic Liner- Compost Bin
Won’t it be wonderful if you have an excellent, rustproof, leak-proof, and odorless kitchen compost bin in your kitchen itself? Mostly such a compost bin can help people who want to compost in apartments. The Green Gardenia Bin has a plastic liner bucket that helps against any leaking worries. It has a magnificent quantity of 10 kgs and stores your kitchen scraps all week long. The green bin does not attract any flies or other unwanted pests that can make composting trouble for you. Its odor-fighting mechanism helps your kitchen stay fresh and exclude any rotting food smell. The elegant design of it will never let a visitor know that the bin is a compost bin!