Call it trash, garbage, or waste, the bottom line is that we are generating a lot of it and it’s going into our landfills. As Mike and I have started our (slow) journey to zero waste one of the concepts that has been standing out to us is this idea of throwing things “away”. When we toss something into the garbage can, we tend to forget about it. But that item doesn’t go “away” without a lot of effort and in many cases it causes environmental harm along the way. We were shocked to learn that approximately 1/3 of waste entering landfills is organic waste, such as food scraps.

So what’s a girl (or guy) to do about the food waste that they generate? Let’s go back to the foundation of the zero waste lifestyle, the Five R’s: Refuse – Reduce – Re-use – Recycle – Rot

Yep, you guessed it. This post is all about the fifth R – rot! When we throw organic waste into the trash can it goes into a landfill. Many people think that organic waste decomposes naturally so it isn’t a problem. I’ve even heard people say that having organic waste in landfills is a good thing! Unfortunately this is far from true. When organic waste decomposes in a landfill-type setting (no oxygen), it releases methane gases. Methane is an awful green house gas that is contributing to climate change (it’s worse that carbon dioxide). That dang banana peel from my morning snack is sitting in a landfill, doing so much more harm than I ever could have imagined!

The bottom line is that we need our food waste to rot in the right way. That’s where composting comes into play. When organic waste (e.g., food waste) is composted it breaks down in a way that has many benefits. The one that resonates with me the most is that it prevents filling our landfills with substances that release methane. Just think of that banana peel, buried underground, releasing methane that seeps up through the ground… gross! I digress, though.

Back to our composting journey. Once we realized how important composting was, we didn’t know where to start. We live in a condo and don’t have a large yard – it’s more of a glorified patio situation. We had heard that you could compost with worms (vermiculture), but one of us wasn’t into that idea (cough, cough, Mike). A friend of mine mentioned that they have community composting options in Los Angeles, so I looked into my options in San Diego. Unfortunately San Diego is pretty far behind when it comes to large scale composting solutions, but we found a small non-profit in Encinitas that offers community composting! It’s called the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation and they offer a great composting program.

With the help of the Solana Center our composting routine is pretty simple – we collect our food scraps and they do the composting! On a daily basis we collect our scraps in a stylish stainless steel composting bucket that we keep on our kitchen counter for convenience, and then every day or two we empty it into a larger bucket that the Solana Center provided. One of our big concerns was that our house would start to smell. But fortunately the counter-top bucket doesn’t start to smell unless we forget it for a couple of days, and the big bucket is airtight and can be kept outside. We fill our big bucket approximately every 4 weeks, drop it off to be added to the community composting pile, and start the process again with a clean bucket.

The community composting approach is working really well for our current lifestyle. Maybe someday I will convince Mike that worm composting is a good idea for us, but for now we are quite content with our process and the wonderful peace of mind that comes from knowing that our banana peels are rotting the right way. If you want to learn more about the awesomeness of composting and ideas for how to get started, I recommend that you read this article.

Wishing you all the best in your individual journey toward a more sustainable lifestyle. And remember, Let it Rot!

xoxo, Nicole