Did you know that discarded food thrown out in the trash is terrible for the environment?
Unfortunately, when food goes into landfills it takes a really long time to rot inside our trash bags resulting in higher amounts of methane – a gas 21 times more destructive to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Yard trimmings and food waste make up about 30 percent of what South Carolinians throw away every year.
You can help by buying compostable waste bags, or even better, turning food scraps into compost for your garden. Composting at home turns your food waste into a valuable product to improve the soil, prevent erosion and reduce the use of fertilizer, pesticides, and water. Ultimately, it saves you money and helps protect the environment by conserving resources.
The Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) has this guide to backyard composting at home.
As a mother of a three-year-old and an infant I knew I would struggle with a DIY effort so we pay for a composting bucket collection service from Compost House. We fill the bucket with our food scraps and they take it away to compost. We can request rich, garden-friendly compost back to our door whenever we like.
When Compost House first left us two buckets I didn’t think we’d need them both. Well, we filled them! I’m slightly horrified that up until now I’ve been sending this much food waste to landfills.
A handy tip on storing food for composting (from Molly who collects our buckets) – fill a container in the freezer up until collection day to avoid the beautiful aroma of rotting food!
