Today’s video is about: Expanding My Compost Operation.

For the month of December, we’ve kept more than 865lbs of coffee grounds out of the landfill through composting.

Organic matter that goes to the landfill doesn’t break down in a very useful way. All of your food scraps are mixed in with things you’d never want in your garden; old diapers, plastic waste, used condoms…

The landfill is essentially a big tarp-lined f-the-environment burrito filled with everything people have tossed out. The organic matter from our food waste gets contaminated with the other stuff it is buried with, or it turns into sludge which will eventually convert to methane. Many landfills are equipped with a snorkel-like pipe that methane puffs out of like a chain-smoking veteran.

Some dumps are able to convert that methane for energy. Others burn it off into our atmosphere. In lesser developed systems the methane just goes straight up into the air. I’ll give you one guess on which gas scientists say is worst to be put up into the sky 😉

Now check this out. According to a multitude of landfill sources including our local Master Composter Program, 40% of the food produced in the United States goes to waste. So all of that fuel energy used to till the soil, all that potable water used to put on the crops, all those transportations costs associated with moving the produce…

Our food supply is more wasted than Spring Break in Cancun. Pre-Covid of course.

This is not an ideal situation. Especially when you consider this waste could easily be converted to compost and used to make more food simply by moving from a garbage bin, to a composting bin.
Being green isn’t about driving electric cars and throwing solar panels on everything. Those things don’t solve the root cause of the problem. We need to be better with the resources we have and tweaking a few ways that we live to be more efficient.

This is something actionable at our level. It is something we MUST do at our level, because our “leaders” are too busy arguing with each other about whose news is more fake.

Have no fear, it’s not all doom and gloom. That was 2020 and this is 2021.

Want to help make a difference? Don’t protest. Don’t write to a politician. Tonight when you make a meal, save your food scraps and make a compost pile in your yard. Don’t have room for your own bin? I put a link in the first comment for a compost pile near you.

If you do compost, thumbs up. Post a pic of your compost pile in the comments to restore faith in humanity.

See the new video here. https://youtu.be/PLdHcjy7wbU