Start the Ultimate At-Home Recycling: Compost!
♻️ LEVEL UP YOUR RECYCLING HABIT: START COMPOSTING! ♻️
Now that you are consistently recycling glass, aluminum, plastics, and paper away from your waste stream, it's time to LEVEL UP and take on another big contributor to landfills: food waste!
Food scraps and yard waste together currently make up more than 30% of what we throw away, but could be composted instead. Making compost keeps these materials out of landfills where they take up space and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
All composting requires three basic ingredients:
Browns - This includes materials such as dead leaves, branches, and twigs.
Greens - This includes materials such as grass clippings, vegetable waste, fruit scraps, and coffee grounds.
Water - Having the right amount of water, greens, and browns is important for compost development.
Your compost pile should have an equal amount of browns to greens. You should also alternate layers of organic materials of different-sized particles. The brown materials provide carbon for your compost, the green materials provide nitrogen, and the water provides moisture to help break down the organic matter.
♻️ For more information on composting from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home
♻️ For more information on food and waste composting: https://www.nrrarecycles.org/food-waste-composting
This material is based upon work supported under a grant by the Rural Utilities Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Rural Utilities Service. Rural Community Assistance Partnership, Inc., is an equal opportunity provider and employer.