Composting Made Easy
When I heard that Australian households send almost 6 million tonnes (according to the 2018-2019 Australian Bureau of Statistics report) of food waste to landfill each year, I felt supremely guilty.
I mean, that's around 240 kilograms per person per year!
The thing was though, I really didn't want the hassle of managing a compost bin or worm farm.
Does that make me sound selfish? Maybe...but I knew that if we embarked on the composting journey, it would be just add another chore to my ever-growing to-do list and the reality is, I would have let it fall by the wayside when it got too much.
And THAT would only defeat the purpose of wanting to becoming part of the solution.
So, I embarked on a Google deep dive to learn all about composting and what I could do to help keep our food waste stay out of landfill without having to actually have a compost bin or worm farm in the backyard.
You see, I always thought that food waste broke down safely in landfill and that it was non-biodegradable materials that were the issue. So my focus had always been on improving my recycling habits...composting was never on my radar!
How wrong I was!
When our food waste ends up in landfill, it creates methane gas, which is 21 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas!
Sadly, methane isn't captured in most landfill facilities, which makes it potent to the atmosphere.
Slowly, local councils are investing in technologies to capture this methane gas and utilise it to generate clean electricity or even bio-fertiliser, but we can all improve these figures NOW by jumping on the composting band wagon!
And it's SO easy to do...thanks to ShareWaste!
ShareWaste connects people who want to recycle their food waste with their neighbours who are already composting, worm-farming or keeping chickens.
As an added bonus, it's a great way to get to know your neighbours!
We purchased a bench top compost bin (I selected this gorgeous one from Seed & Sprout because it was so much more stylish than the other ones I found) that comes with a charcoal filter that actually works to keep any smells in the bin (which was another of my concerns).
We've tried a few home compostable bin liners and have now settled on the Glad to be Green Compostable Kitchen Caddy Liners that fit the bin perfectly and don't disintegrate easily like we found the Seed & Sprout and BioBag options to do.
These bags are available at Coles and Woolworths, are affordable, made from 30% renewable material corn starch and are certified home and industrial compostable.
What does that mean? Well it means that you can simply take the bag out from your caddy and deliver it directly to your ShareWaste contact in the bag for them to pop straight into their compost because it will degrade with your food waste! It's as easy as that!
We've discovered the easiest way to store our food waste once the caddy is full with a minimum of fuss and no mess, is to pop a bag in our deep freezer and store our full caddy bags in there until we're ready to deliver them down the road.
You could take them more regularly than we do, but we tend to do a drop every week or so and freezing the contents means no smells and no leakage!
FUN FACT: The satchels we send your orders in as well as the wood wool and beads that keep your products safe are all home compostable!!
So there you go, a simple (and stylish!) solution to jump on the composting bandwagon and help the environment.
I'd love to hear your stories of composting via the comments below. Have you started composting your food waste yet? Do you think it's something you'll try?
Comments