Composting for the Urban Kitchen

RSVP Stainless Steel Compost Pail $39.99
from the Grist Store at Amazon

Food and paper make up the largest percentage of items in most landfills, food waste is considered the #1 least recycled material. The nature of today’s landfills are such that food waste often doesn’t break down properly and contributes to landfills producing methane – a harmful greenhouse gas.

Large urban areas often have to ship the garbage to distant, rural landfills, using fleets of trucks spewing tons of greenhouse gases into the air on a daily basis. At the same time farms use chemical fertilizers to grow their crops that contributes to pollution and soil degradation. Finding ways to reduce landfill waste and generate sources of rich, organic fertilizer is clearly the way to go.

I read Elizabeth Royte awesome book, Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash recently, who gives an excellent account of her investigations into all things pertaining to garbage and has much useful information on composting. The wonderful and ever fascinating everydaytrash blog has a terrific interview with Ms. Royte well worth the read.
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