I started thinking about what to write for this month’s article, and the topic of New Year’s resolutions inevitably came up. What better way to put an old saying into practice, “out with the old, in with the new,” than by composting? I’ve been meaning to start composting for a long while now, and always find some sort of excuse. Usually it’s because 1) I live in an apartment building and don’t have the space, e.g. a yard, or 2) I’m a little freaked out that a pile of food waste under my sink will start to smell and attract flies and offend my guests! Well, this year I told myself no excuses and set out to find some answers to these concerns. It turns out both of these concerns can be promptly discarded.

Approximately 30% of the United States’ household trash is yard clippings and kitchen scraps. I knew that adding compost to your garden or house plants benefits the soil’s overall fertility and health, but I hadn’t realized how much more sense it makes than just sending the scraps to a landfill. I figured it would all break down in the end, right? Actually, in a landfill, decaying organic matter reacts with other materials to create a toxic runoff that contaminates nearby streams or groundwater. There are many resources, it turns out, on indoor composting to help avoid this problem. Also, if your compost and/or vermiculture worm bin attracts flies, bury the food with newspaper clippings. If the compost pile starts to have an odor, all you have to do is add clumps of leaves, straw, or woody material and mix it in.

Rather than thoroughly expound on the reasons why composting is good, I thought I’d share the sites I found while doing my own research to keep my New Year’s resolution: Community Gardens Office – I started by calling this office to see if any of the community gardens would accept my compost on a weekly or monthly basis. If you don’t have a yard or enough space and are interested, I encourage you do try the same in your city. Unfortunately, the person at the office told me that they do not accept drop-offs of food scraps, but he did mention that I could ask my landlord to provide a green yard debris bin. You are allowed to place materials such as vines, grass clippings, tree trimmings, fruit and vegetables from your garden, or pumpkins into the green bin. While this does not include all compostable items such as coffee grounds or egg shells, it is a tremendously good start.

I also wanted to spread the word after I learned how businesses can set themselves up for the Commercial Food Composting Program, where Portland provides free collection bins and assistance to collect food scraps. It would be worth it to see if your city has a similar program. If you work at a restaurant, encourage them to get one of these bins. Commmercial Food Composting is leading to plans to expand the program to residential properties, which would be great, however this article explains how commercial or large-scale composting is not without its challenges. The environmental benefits and the sustainability of the program come into question when there is not a local facility large enough to handle the waste. Compost is then shipped to far away locations, which requires the use of fossil fuels. A plausible solution? Local community composting venture – If only more of these started to spring up!

The second thing I did was go to my favorite resource for green living, ecometro.com, and see if anyone had previously covered the topic of compost. It turns out, these are two great articles and I wanted to give them props: Compost or the Rotting Corner by Joe Sixta, Captain Compost by Meredith Sorensen. These articles are still relevant, but are over a year old and I thought I could add some updates and share some additional great resources:

Indoor Composting

4 Methods of Indoor Composting

This seemed helpful site and has more official "what to compost" list: Composting brought to you by the EPA

I also found out that Starbucks offers free coffee grounds for people who want to get started. Does anyone know of other coffee shops around here doing this?