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Composting hasn’t come easily for me. I’ve been trying on and off for the past few years to compost our kitchen scraps and encourage my family to do the same. Seems like a pretty simple task, yet I’m struggling.
I have all the right equipment- an outdoor compost bin [2]
My composting system is in place, however I can’t get into a groove.
Here’s why composting isn’t working for me:
- The smell
- The fruit flies
The fruit fly problem [5] was so awful last year that I ended up leaving the composting pail on our back deck for most of the winter. I needed a composting vacation.
Now I’m back from my composting vacation and I’ve decided to take the NBC Green is Universal Eco Eats Challenge [6] to compost kitchen food waste [7].
Here’s the challenge:
Give Compost A Chance: Food scraps make up 7 percent of household waste, on average. Try composting your food scraps instead of sending them to a landfill and and watch your garbage bag deflate.
Did you know that a typical household throws away [8]an estimated 474 pounds of food waste each year. That means about 1.5 lbs per person a day in the U.S. Food scraps generated by all households in the United States could be piled on a football field more than five miles (26,400 feet) high. That’s a lot of waste.
The solution to my composting issues was simple: dump the compost pail outside in the compost bin daily so there’s no opportunity for fruit flies or that horrible smell to surface.
Here are a few tips to make kitchen scrap composting work for you.
- Invest in a quality compost pail [3]
- Do not compost meats, dairy and fish. Stick with other food scraps.
- Keep all pesticide and/or herbicide treated food scraps out of your compost bin and pail.
- Empty your containers daily to insure that no smell spreads throughout your kitchen or home. This will also keep the fruit flies away.
It’s amazing how I’ve reduced the amount of garbage we throw away by composting our kitchen food waste.
What’s your trick to composting? I’d love to hear.
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Are you interested in ‘eco-eating’? NBC’s Green is Universal is hosting an “Eco Eats” sweepstakes from September 29 – October 17. To join, visit their free green-living tool, One Small Act [10], and join the “Eco Eats” challenge. Everyone who signs-up and tackles at least one action by October 17th will be entered to win one of five 6-month subscriptions to NatureBox [11]. No Purchase Necessary. Must be US resident and 18+. Read official rules here [12].
Note: In exchange for participating in the challenge and writing this post, I was given a gift package from Green is Universal. All opinions here are still my own.”
photo credit: London Permaculture [14] via photopin [15] cc [16]