Composting : A Guide for Zero Food Waste
/It’s been reported that the average UK household wastes around 30% of the food they buy. And this wasted food often ends up in landfill, where it produces methane, a very dangerous greenhouse gas. In fact, if food waste was a country, it would be the third largest producer of greenhouse gases.
We can all make a difference to the amount of food we waste. As Tom Hunt writes in his book Eating for Pleasure, People & Planet ‘by reducing our waste and composting what we can’t eat, we save an impressive amount of human power, resources and energy that went into producing that food, and the greenhouse gas emissions that would have been created if we’d thrown it into landfill. This is one of many ways that our own small actions ripple throughout the world, affecting people and the environment.’ And as Douglas McMaster explains in his book Silo ‘Compost is the linchpin of the closed-loop zero waste system; all biodegradable leftovers can be thrown into the pot, which then feeds back into the soil to grow the next harvest.’
When we moved from London to Cornwall we were surprised that food waste wasn’t collected by the council, a service we were lucky to have in London. On moving we decided to invest in a compost system to deal with any unavoidable food scraps we were left with. Even though our food waste would end up at the Cornwall Energy Recovery Centre and not landfill we wanted to make use of this resource and turn our waste food into compost for the garden. If you’ve been to a garden centre you’ll know its tricky getting compost not in plastic bags, so creating your own compost is a double win, you’ll be reducing your overall waste by utilising your food waste and you’ll avoid single use plastic by not needing to buy bagged compost from the garden centre!
We’re now pleased that Cornwall Council are rolling out food waste collections, which will be fully up and running by 2025. But, its surprisingly easy to compost at home and there are a variety of options available depending on your situation, so we’ll be continuing with our home composting!
If you have a garden one of the most low-key ways to reduce your food waste and instead gift it back to the earth is to collect your food scraps in a large container and at the end of the day you can add them to your garden. Choosing a patch of soil add your scraps and cover them slightly with soil and brown matter (dry leaves) and if dry water slightly and repeat as and when you have scraps. No ‘official’ composting kit is needed, nature will do its thing! If you fancy something more structured you can build or buy a compost bin to place your scraps in. If you don’t have a garden or outside space is limited you could look into a wormery or bokashi bin that suit indoor composting or smaller outdoor spaces.
We opted for a wormery and then progressed onto a bigger compost bin as we had the space available.
The wormery was great, we found a nice compact tray system from Original Organics that was easy to use for two composting novices! The wormey was also made from recycled plastic so we were pleased with that too!
The system is fairly simple to use, to start we received our worms with some compost and we allowed our worms to settle in with a small amount of food waste. At the beginning you add small amounts of food waste to get them up to speed, the food waste is supposed to naturally decompose first and then the worms will get involved so you have to give them a bit of time! Once established a tiger wormery can cope with the average food waste output of a family of 4. You can put most food waste in the wormery as the worms will eat any dead and decaying matter, if adding meat scraps its best to bury and cover them so to avoid attracting flies and try to avoid adding too much onion and citrus as it tends to make the environment too acidic for the worms. Our wormery works on an easy tray system, once the bottom tray is full with waste we place a new tray on top and start filling that. The worms migrate up the system and by the time the third or fourth tray is full the first tray is ready for harvesting.
The main problem areas we have run into with our wormery has been wetness. As you may have noticed it likes to rain in Cornwall and we’ve learnt that we have to keep an eye on our wormery around rainy periods to stop it getting water logged. Staying on top of draining the bottom tray that holds the liquid feed that is produced and also adding extra shredded paper and egg cartons to soak up any excess moisture are crucial care points (its advised for any compost to have a good mix of carbon so you need to mix in paper, wood chips, garden waste to balance the waste mix)! We have also noticed we do attract flies (mainly fruit) but they don’t cause any harm to the worms or to us so it hasn’t bothered us too much and they come and go with the seasons.
We would definitely recommend getting a compost system for your food waste so you can utilise this great source of goodness for your garden or potted plants.
If its not for you, make sure you utilise Cornwalls new food waste collection. The council estimated that of each bin bag collected 35% was made up of food waste that will now be recyclable using the new service. You’ll be able to recycle all sorts of food including tea bags, egg shells, bones, plate scrapings, veg peelings and more. This waste will be collected weekly and recycled into farm fertiliser that will grow more food, and energy to power communities.
Happy Composting!
Composting Tips:
Green waste collection from Cornwall Council
Buy a compost bin (remember you can also lookout for secondhand options)
