Ordering a dumpster for your larger recycling is the best idea to clean up your garden and yard but there’s one thing you can do to help the planet, its home composting. There is no doubt that we have all taken our planet for granted especially when it comes to dumping and trashing all our waste materials, whether it’s food scraps, garden cuttings, trees and wood, paper or metal. Now, more than ever, it has become easier and more convenient to call up a trash removal company and have a dumpster delivered right to your doorstep. @Green Solutions and More, we offer many different size dumpster options to make your recycling and trash collection simple and affordable. This, in turn, helps the environment as we process all organic matter into either, bark, wood chips, concrete aggregate for use in retaining walls or pavements, or good compost for reuse in soil.
However, don’t underestimate your own capabilities when it comes to making compost right from your kitchen to the back yard and into your soil again. This is fun and so rewarding to actually feed your garden right from your kitchen scraps.
Darby Hoover, NRDC’s senior resource specialist in the Food and Agriculture program , tells us that compost adds nutrients and organic matter back to soil, which benefits agriculture, reduces our reliance on synthetic fertilizers and diverts methane producing organic materials away from commercial dumps and landfills. Not to forget how compost helps you with your water retention in your soil. You will be able to cut back on watering when your soil is composted and mulched correctly. Here are a few easy steps to help you set up a composting process:
Set up your space
Food is going to rot, no matter what. All you have to do is help. “You don’t need a lot of technology,“ Hoover says. “You just want to make the food break down in a way that’s compatible with your life.” If you have room in your yard and the temperature where you live is even somewhat moderate, you can fence off an area (3 x 3 x 3 feet is considered ideal) and start your scrap pile directly on the ground. For a tidier arrangement, buy or make bins to contain your organic waste or drums that tumble and aerate it, which helps to convert it to compost even faster. See more details on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s website. Even apartment dwellers can get in on the action: Indoor bins stocked with red worms, critters you can order online, process food scraps in a smaller space. (This NRDC Tumblr post tells you how to get started.)
Master the mix
A pile of decomposing food might sound like the last thing you want in your backyard or under your sink. But if you do it right, you’ll hardly notice it’s there. “If you create the proper balance of materials, you’ll have aerobic conditions, and the microorganisms that thrive there break down scraps with little to no odor,” Hoover says. There’s an easy, color-coded formula to make sure this happens. Add two or three parts carbon-heavy “browns” for every one part nitrogen-centric “greens.“ The “browns” include shredded newspaper and other paper, dead leaves, and food-soiled paper napkins. (Just don’t use any coated, shiny paper, including milk cartons—they won’t break down sufficiently—or any treated or painted wood.) For “greens,“ toss in fruit and vegetable bits (scrape off any plastic stickers first), breads and grains, coffee grounds and filters, and grass clippings. To stash your scraps until you’re ready to haul them out to the yard, you may find it convenient to designate a pail under the sink or a bag in the freezer.
Be selective with your scraps
There are a few food scraps that should still go out with the trash (or into your curbside “green“ bin, if you’re lucky enough to live in a city that accepts food scraps for centralized composting). Meat, bones, and dairy products don’t belong in the typical household compost pile. “You can’t guarantee that the internal heat generated by your compost will reach the temperatures required to kill pathogens that might be there,” Hoover says. Plus, they lure pests. “Meat scraps and bones will attract cats or skunks from a long distance, as will oils like olive oil,” says Bill Hlubik, a professor of agriculture and plant science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. When adding food scraps like bread products to your pile, it’s best to add in moderation and bury them in your heap to help reduce unwanted attention from pests. And before you get started on your composting, make sure you’ve followed our helpful tips to reduce the amount of food that gets wasted.
Remember, compost is like gold to your earth so use it wisely. As your food scraps and shredded leaves morph into dark, soil like matter you will be able to sprinkle it onto beds and around tree bases and just dig it in lightly. The smell will be mild and earthy with a musty smell of forest. Enjoy the deep satisfaction of knowing you have kept all these wonderful nutrients out of garbage and landfills and are helping your garden back to health.
Now that you have a solution for your everyday food scraps, let us take care of your larger recycling and trash removal. We offer #dumpsters of any size to help you cart away your green waste and old lawn, concrete, or general tree and garden refuse for recycling. Call us and we can suggest the right size dumpster delivered right to your doorstep.
With us spending more time at home, enjoy this time in your garden to cut back old, dead trees and branches, rake lawns, lift dead grass, clean gutters and throw away junk that has been accumulating in your basement and garage. Get those big tasks done with our help from @Green Solutions and More.
Green Solutions and More Inc.
Call us at: 916 409-9700