Consider Composting

The Palisadian-Post has partnered with locally founded environmental organization Resilient Palisades to deliver a weekly “green tip” to our readers. This week’s tip was written by Nika Nazarizadeh.

One of the simple lifestyle changes we can incorporate in our daily lives in order to sustainably manage our waste is setting aside an area in our homes for compost, a mixture of ingredients that can be mashed together to form plant fertilizers.

While LA Sanitation has launched a new program for placing food scraps in green bins, composting is a far more sustainable option. Using sanitation trucks to deal with food waste adds unnecessary mileage and emissions.

In contrast, composting reduces the need for synthetic/chemical fertilizers and provides enriching nutrients to soil, leading to healthier plants, trees, fruits and vegetables.

So, how do we produce compost in our homes? Most of the food scraps that pile up after our meals—like orange peels, crushed eggshells, coffee grounds and paper fillers—can be composted to create fertilizer. At the same time, it’s important to recognize there are harmful items that can contaminate compost like meat/fish bones, dairy products and produce stickers.

Now that we know what to put in our compost, where do we put it? Creating a space to collect compost is simple. First, it’s important to create an easily accessible location to store any food scraps that may accumulate during the cooking process.

My family stores a container under our kitchen sink that we can quickly drop our scraps into. The scraps are then transported to a backyard composting station.

The station can be as simple as a heap or bin, or you can purchase a composting tumbler to make turning easier. If you don’t want to keep compost in your backyard, the Resilient Palisades team offers a local and efficient compost drop-off service. Visit resilientpalisades.org/zero-waste-team/#compost for details.

Another at-home composting option is vermicomposting, where earthworms convert organic matter into fertilizer. To start an at-home vermicomposting station, set aside a container bedded in moist newspaper scraps (old Palisadian-Post editions are a great option), and add your worms and compost in.

Red worms are best to use for vermicomposting. Be sure to give your worms the proper care they need to survive. They require air, moisture, warm temperatures and dark space.

With a variety of different ways to compost and Resilient Palisades to help, consider composting.