We’ve been talking about the big picture of soil and now it’s time to look at your own backyard. It turns out that repurposing your juice pulp and other veggie food scraps can be a huge benefit for your garden and the planet too. Get all the information and motivation you need to reduce food waste, start composting and much more.

My first impression of my compost pile? It smells so sweet. I’m not kidding. I’m not sure what I expected, but this aroma of earthy pleasantness was not it. I inherited this compost bin when I moved to my new home, and as I’ve been writing this series on soil health and why it matters, I knew it would eventually land here—in the backyard.

It’s so important to understand the big issues facing our soil and applaud farmers near and far who are working to replenish the soil, but we can’t forget the personal ways we can also work to protect the planet. It starts at home. You don’t have to be a soil scientist or a climate change expert to get involved.

Begin by thinking about every banana peel that goes into the trash after you make a smoothie or every apple core that gets tossed from juicing. You are not alone if that food waste currently goes into your garbage can.

In fact, by diverting this waste from the landfill and into a compost bin in your backyard (or joining a community compost program), you can help reduce the roughly 1.3 billion tons of food that is wasted each year, around the globe. That number amounts to about one third of all food produced for human consumption, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.₁

For those who live in the United States, it’s the leading country in the world for food waste with folks throwing away nearly 40 million tons of food every year.₂ Most of this food goes straight to landfills. The U.S. EPA estimates that more food reaches landfills than any other material in everyday trash, making up about a quarter of all municipal solid waste.₃ On average, people in the U.S. waste about one pound of food per person each day.₄

All this discarded food contributes to rising methane emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas. Even amid coronavirus shutdowns in 2020, methane emissions continued to surge, according to research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released in April 2021.₅ Methane is 28 times more potent than CO2 at trapping heat over a 100-year time frame, the report reveals.

“Human activity is driving climate change,” said Colm Sweeney, assistant deputy director of the Global Monitoring Lab in a statement.₆ “If we want to mitigate the worst impacts, it’s going to take a deliberate focus on reducing fossil fuels emissions to near zero—and even then, we’ll need to look for ways to further remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere.”

The simple act of redirecting your banana peel or apple core can make a difference when it comes to global warming.

In fact, Paul Hawken, author of the groundbreaking book on climate solutions Drawdown, lists ending food waste as one of the top ten ways to help reverse global warming. That’s incredible!

“The food we waste is responsible for roughly 8 percent of global emissions,” Hawken writes.₇

Food waste is one of the top sustainability issues worldwide, and the United Nations environment program has an ambitious goal of eliminating half of all food waste by 2030.₈

“Recycling food and other organic waste into compost provides a range of environmental benefits, including improving soil health, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, recycling nutrients, and mitigating the impact of droughts,” according to the National Resource Defense Council.₉

Now you might be wondering, doesn’t organic material like food scraps just fall to pieces at the landfill and go back to the soil? The short answer is no.

Organic materials at the landfill usually get compacted and covered, which removes oxygen. All that food waste gets mixed with other kinds of trash and the lack of oxygen causes it all to breakdown in an anaerobic process.₁₀ It’s a slow method that keeps the waste building up for longer periods of time. You can find whole heads of cabbage in a landfill years after they were first dumped.₁₁

But there is a better solution for our food waste. Compost! It’s an easy and effective way to reuse leftover food scraps and give back to the land in a way that can sustain and nourish our soil.

Photo by Kamala Saraswathi / Unsplash

 

What is Compost?

A simple definition of compost is any organic material, such as leaves and food scraps, that can breakdown into a natural fertilizer.₁₂ Compost can be added to soil and help enrich plants.

Research shows that when you add organic material to soil it can increase its ability to retain water.₁₃ That’s great news for drought-prone areas. Each 1 percent increase in organic matter in the soil can help it hold about 20,000 more gallons of water per acre.₁₄ When farmers use compost to nourish soil, they can use less water and still enjoy high yields. This same effort can help in your backyard or at a community garden as well.

Compost also helps improve soil health by bringing key nutrients back to the dirt including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.₁₅

A home compost pile is a great way to divert your food waste from a landfill to help supercharge your garden and work to help reverse climate change.

The Basics of Composting

Let’s cover all the ways you can salvage fresh foods from your garbage bin at home and put them to use in your garden. The basic idea is to find (or make) a compost bin, cover it, turn it and water it about once a week, and in 8-12 weeks, you will have compost.

Compost has three basic components: browns, greens and water.

Browns include dead leaves, branches, cardboard boxes, brown paper bags and even some newer compostable food packaging (look for labels that say safe for composting).

Greens are any materials such as grass clippings, vegetable waste, fruit scraps and coffee grounds.

Water is also needed in your compost pile, as the moisture will help break down the organic matter.

You want to strive to include equal amount of browns and greens in your compost pile and alternate layers of organic materials. The smaller pieces break down sooner, so consider breaking leaves apart, splitting banana peels, etc.

Use this comprehensive list of what you can and cannot compost from the U.S. EPA to get started.₁₆

If you are more a visual learner, check out this video from the Nelson City Council in New Zealand to get started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egyNJ7xPyoQ