Issues > June 1, 1996 (#25) > Make Compost, Not Waste

Make Compost, Not Waste

Today I hit paydirt. I lugged our weekly office bagful of orange peels, wilted greens and coffee grounds four blocks to the Union Square Greenmarket, where the farmers were selling bundles of blossoming peach boughs. At the table of the Lower East Side Ecology Center, Compost Lady--red-haired Christina Datz Romero--accepted our kitchen scraps with her customary thanks. But today there was more: signaling me to wait, she opened a huge burlap sack and scooped out mounds of rich black earth into one of Pretzel Man's recycled bags. "Here," she said, handing me a five-pound bag of compost--a bi-seasonal gift to regular deliverers of raw stuff.

Back at Mothers & Others, we divided up the riches--for winter-weary azaleas in my apartment; for the seedlings in Mary Lou's office; for the sunflowers Betsy's daughter, Lucy, is sprouting in a jar. Wendy took some to pot her violets; although she has her own compost pile in the garden at her Catskill home, it is usually eaten by animals before it has time to cook. I've come a long way since my first day of work, when I was grossed out by the compost bucket under the sink. I am proud to be part of a growing national trend involving farmers, hospitals and schools, households and municipalities. Some let it rot outdoors in mounds. Others, like Ruth Messinger, Manhattan Borough President, compost indoors with a worm box.

"All our numbers have shown that composting has been steadily increasing," says Rob Steuteville, senior editor at Biocycle magazine. "From 700 yard-trimmings facilities in 1988, it's gone up to over 3,300 nationwide. And, there are now 220 facilities making biosolid sludge from municipal solid wastewater treatment plants," Steuteville says. A portion of New York City's wastewater sludge is pelletized for use on croplands.

Compost REDUCES the waste stream, cutting back on landfills and incineration

In a 50-state survey, in its annual "State of Garbage in America" issue, Biocycle found "...a significant change in solid waste management" in the trend toward fewer municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills and growth of transfer stations, where materials can be separated and recovered.

"About 70 percent of what you throw away is, theoretically, compostable," says Steuteville. In Westchester, New York, a county-wide push for recycling and composting has reduced the amount of trash burned in the Peekskill incinerator by 10,000 tons a year.

New York City's four botanical gardens--in Staten Island, Queens and the Bronx--conduct outreach programs. "We have classes for the homeowner and community gardener on how to compost both outdoors and in an apartment, and also promote composting on the large scale, with apartment complexes, universities and schools," says Pat Jasaitis, coordinator of urban composting at Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

Throughout the boroughs, successful institutions include Junior High School 60 in Manhattan, which, in addition to separating its own cafeteria waste, composts food and leftovers from markets in the community. And, "New York Hospital in Queens collects its kitchen preparation waste in 10,000-worm bins," Jasaitis says.

If it can be done in New York City, it can be done anywhere--and is. The Medical Center Hospital of Vermont, in Burlington, works with the nonprofit Intervale Foundation to compost waste from 4,000 daily meals. At its compost center and farm, the Foundation grows vegetables that it sells back to the hospital. Burke Rehabilitation Hospital in White Plains, New York, composts kitchen waste that nourishes its own kitchen garden. "These institutions can compost fruit and vegetable residue cheaper than sending it to a landfill," Steuteville says, adding that, otherwise, they have to pay steep fees to private haulers.

"Perhaps the newest and most exciting composting trend is source-separated food waste," says Tom Richard, M.S., a biological engineer with the Cornell University Cooperative Extension. Food processing plants, food wholesalers, supermarkets and restaurants are separating food waste from glass, plastic and metal into giant compost bins. "A medium-size bin in an adjacent parking lot or alley can allow them to begin composting on-site. Ideally, they can finish it there and sell it on the urban marketplace," Richard says.

Is there an urban marketplace for compost? "There's actually a great demand from homeowners and city parks," says Richard. "Compost that markets for $5 per yard in farm communities gets $20 to $30 in New York City." In all five boroughs, community gardeners lease vacant lots from the city. The Green Guerrillas, a nonprofit organization, provides technical composting assistance, helps gardeners locate other producers of compostables, such as coffee shops and lumber yards, and runs workshops in schools.

The EARTHLY benefits of compost

Compost, known as "black (or brown) gold" to connoisseurs, consists of organic material that has been broken down, or processed, by fungi, bacteria, microorganisms and earthworms. The organic component of soil is known as humus, which provides such major nutrients as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, as well as trace elements--boron, manganese, iron, copper and zinc. In addition, compost helps soil retain water and improves its structure, binding the particles while aerating the mass. "Composting is an exercise in immortality," writes Anne Raver, gardening columnist of The New York Times.

Besides renewing our soil, compost can mend our psyches while saving us money. As Michael Pollan writes in Second Nature, "...compost restores the gardener's independence--if only from the garden center and the petrochemical industry."

Compost as a NATURAL pesticide and fungicide

Mix compost with water in a spray bottle, and you've got a nontoxic pesticide. "'Compost tea' has been proven to be extremely useful in keeping mildew and fungus off such crops as strawberries, squashes and pumpkins, grapes and grape leaves," says Will Brinton, Ph.D., founder of Woods End Research Laboratories in Mount Vernon, Maine. "You just spray it on the plants," Dr. Brinton says, explaining that compost tea won't be available commercially until someone figures out how to preserve it. "You have to use it as soon as you make it," he says. (For how to mix, see Resources).

The Clean Washington Center (CWC), a state agency, has been working on commercial development of disease-suppressive composts made from yard debris. With Land Recovery, Inc., CWC is pioneering a program that sells municipal yard waste compost to landscapers, fruit farmers and golf courses to "inoculate" soils against pests.

In the city, we tend to think that we're off the hook--those of us without terraces or yards, anyway. But we're not, so long as we're producing kitchen waste to the tune of three pounds per person per week, according to Lower East Side Ecology Center.

It occurred to me that earthworms might have some appeal for city children like my ten-year-old son, Rory, who can't have cats, dogs or birds because of my allergies. Still, I was prepared to be laughed at when I broached a worm box one morning as we set out for school. "Sure! I wouldn't mind," Rory said. "Worms eat anything. They'd take the food we can't eat and process it into soil."

"What would we do with the soil?"

"We'd take it and dump it somewhere they needed it," he said, pointing to the park across the street. In fact, Green Guerrillas, Lower East Side Ecology Center and other city gardeners regularly compost the beds of the city's struggling curbside trees. For today's scientific children, it's not just something furry and cuddly they want but that sense of connection to, and responsibility for, life.

What YOU can do: The basic compost recipe

The basic recipe for efficient decomposition combines lots of carbonaceous material (dry leaves, wood chips, twigs and straw) with fresh yard trimmings, grass, vegetable and fruit peels and coffee grounds. Mix, then "cook." This happens through the energy generated by the microorganisms, which heats a compost pile to 150 degrees at its core. "If you add about half brown to half green, your pile should start cooking," Raver writes. Good compost should be ready in 60 to 90 days.

In a free-form PILE or in a BIN?

Out of doors, loosen the soil first to activate microorganisms, then lay down branches or corn stalks to promote air circulation. Michael Pollan advises, "...it's best to begin a compost pile with a bit of compost, on the same principle as sourdough bread making." Anne Raver layers her uncontained pile, alternating six-to-eight inch layers of raw organic stuff with a sprinkling of manure, dried blood or cottonseed meal, then a two-inch layer of soil.

Whether you let your compost decompose en plein air or in a container, keep turning your pile, which adds cold matter to the core and provides oxygen to beneficial microbes. Keep it slightly damp, but add dry leaves if the pile starts to stink.

Warning: Keep out meat, fish, bones, grease and cheese; they attract rats. Also, oily things tend to stay preserved.

How to make and use a WORM box ("vermicomposting")

"With a worm box, you harness the ability of worms to eat up to half their weight in food each day," says Pat Jasaitis. "But you're also harnessing the bacteria and all the other soil insects and fungus that make up that whole web of life."

When you order redworms from a garden catalog or store, you will receive either Eisenia foeteida or Lumbrious rubellus.

For a household of two people, you're probably producing one to two pounds of compostable food waste--grains, eggshells, coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit and vegetable scraps--a day. This can be handled by two pounds, or about 2,000, worms.

Worm bins can be purchased, or you can use any shallow wooden or plastic box (8 to 12 inches deep). Allow one square foot of surface area for each pound of worms. Drill ten half-inch holes in the bottom for air circulation and drainage, and make air holes in the sides as well. Line the bottom with a thin layer of straw or moistened newspaper. Add four inches of moistened bedding material such as leaves, potting soil, or one-inch newspaper strips, "something fluffy to absorb moisture," Jasaitis says. And set the worm bin about one inch above a drainage tray.

Cut up large items, like broccoli stalks, and always add food in one direction, moving from left to right, say. "Worms tend to move with the fresher food. The compost gets less chunky as it gets older--worm castings get finer," Jasaitis says. That way, you can harvest the older compost. Or, keep two bins going. After two months, dump out one ripe bin. The worms will move away from the light, and you can scrape away the top.

How to make compost TEA

Woods End provides this recipe for "Compost Extract": Mix 1 part compost to 3-10 parts water (animal manure composts work best). Stir 3 times and let stand 7-14 days. Decant, then filter through a fine screen. Spray as often as needed.

SPREAD it around

Don't waste it! Call your local Department of Parks & Recreation or Sanitation, botanical garden or arboretum, to find out if they will pick up yard waste or have drop-off sites for any excess compost you've made. Remember: Keep it off the curb, and you'll keep it off the landfills.