Kitchen Composting. It’s not complicated!

By Joyce Shanks

Recycling paper and plastic has become de rigeur. But, did you know that the organic material finding its way from kitchen counters to landfills contributes between 1% and 3% of Canada’s green house gas emissions? By organic, we mean the stuff that nature gave us in the first place; the carrot and potato peelings, the melon shells and the wilted lettuce from the fridge are all examples of household waste that can be converted to organic fertilizer. The act of collecting the organic wastes from your table, coffee maker, garden, and cutting board is called composting and $215,000,000 over the next five years has been slated to build 4 organic waste treatment plants in the Montreal region so that residents will have their organic waste collected weekly. The goal is to convert the collected waste into compost and biofuel. Organized composting and compost pick ups will make it easy for city dwellers to give back to Mother Nature as communes and Kibbutzim have been doing for years. Composting is a simple and beneficial way to support multiple levels of our eco system. It improves air quality, helps to grow more nutrient rich fruits and vegetables, and reduces potential ground water contamination. According to a recent CTV report, Montreal says that nearly half of the waste going to the landfills is green. The Borough of Cote St Luc has taken the lead on this in the greater Montreal area and Big Hanna from Sweden, the largest commercial composter in Canada, has recently been acquired by McGill University for its downtown campus. McGill’s Gorilla Composting organization has been working for years becoming a Canadian leader in composting. So where do we begin in our humble homes? Composting is a natural and biological breakdown of organic material by micro-organisms, fungi and bacteria, and for the biological breakdown to occur the proper environment needs to be created. First, getting or building a composter, and having a smaller receptacle like a stainless steel bucket with lid for your kitchen scraps is the beginning. (Most boroughs offer composters for purchase at a discounted price.) Both “green” and brown” materials need to be alternately fed to your composter. The GREENS are your nitrogen rich materials like fruit and vegetable scraps and peelings, coffee grounds and tea bags, and crushed egg shells and the BROWNS are the carbon rich materials such as dry leaves, bread, pasta and rice as well as shredded paper and paper towels. Simply put, the “greens” is usually the wet stuff from your kitchen and the browns are usually dry. The location of your composter and the way you layer its contents and care for them is important too, and there are some great websites with step by step instructions like from London, Ontario-http://www.london.ca/d.aspx?s=/Recycling_and_Composting/Compost_at_home.htm, and the Compost Montreal has graphical downloadable document that demonstrates what is ok and not ok to compost found here: http://www.compostmontreal.com/compostables. It will be a few years before the city can implement the weekly organic waste pickups, but small changes to your household waste management habits and personal composting is a painless and invaluable contribution you can make towards improving the health of the environment and yourselves.

Joyce Shanks, Founder of eCause Canada, Green Fundraising, www.ecause.ca, 514.998.3863, 1.877.638.1678