Are You a Composting Pro?

All of the above can be composted. It's pretty incredible how many everyday items can be thrown in your compost bin. Check out 163 Things You Can Compost for a comprehensive list of all the amazing things that you can compost.

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Build a Compost Box in Your Apartment
Composting Basics: Compost Without a Yard

Chicken, horse, and cow dung are fair game in any garden, but your standard cat or dog poop can introduce parasites and infection, which is the last thing you want to be adding to any garden meant for human consumption. However, by using enzymatic Super Digester Concentrate additives, pet waste can be safely composted in the backyard, although it is still not recommended for use on your veggies.

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Vermicomposting is composting using worms. A worm composter has two advantages over a conventional compost box: The compost is actually superior to regular compost and many of the odor issues that are prevalent in regular composting are not a problem with vermicomposting.

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How to Build a Worm Composting Bin
Make a Compost Bin from an Old Storage Tub

Not only will you get to save on waste disposal costs, but you'll also help conserve dwindling landfill space because yard trimmings and food residuals together constitute 23 percent of the U.S. waste stream, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Compost is often referred to as gardener's gold, because the dark soil virtually eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers, stimulates healthy root development, and promotes higher yields of fruit and vegetable crops.

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Green Your Yard, Part 2: Rethinking the Backyard
Green Glossary: Mulch

According to TreeHugger's Composting Basics, the most rapid composting occurs with the ideal carbon to nitrogen ratio of between 25 and 30 to 1. In other words, the ingredients placed in the pile should contain 25 to 30 times as much carbon as nitrogen. In order to find the correct range, take into account that grass clippings average about 19 to 1 and dry autumn leaves average about 55 to 1, so mixing equal parts by volume nets approximately the correct range of carbon to nitrogen. At that point you can add your food scraps for rapid composting.

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The United States recycles or composts about 34 percent of all municipal solid waste, but the average American still throws out about 1,200 pounds of waste every year which could be composted. That means there's a lot of room for improvement. For each pound you prevent from reaching a landfill, you save 2.5 pounds of CO2 emissions. That slashes 3,000 pounds off your personal carbon footprint, which is equal to about 7 percent of the statistically average American's carbon footprint.

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Green Eyes On: Start a Compost Pile With Your Gutter Cleanings
Build a Compost Box in Your Apartment

These are all reduced. The suction airflow in most composting toilets takes toilet and bathroom odor out of the room. According to How Stuff Works, the average American uses 74 gallons of water per day, one-third of which splashes down a flushing toilet. An older toilet uses up to 7 gallons per flush, though federal law now calls for 1.6-gallon low-flow models in new homes. A composting toilet may save more than 6,600 gallons of water per person a year. According to Compostingtoilet.org, sewage rates and water rates cost an average of $500 per year, a fee that is drastically reduced just by the use of a composting toilet.

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Hot composting occurs when the compost stays above about 90 degrees, allowing aerobic bacteria to thrive, killing most pathogens and seeds, and rapidly producing usable compost. Hot composting is usually a faster method of composting over passive or cold composting.

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Green Glossary: Green Super Model
Composting Basics: Make Compost Fast

Under optimum conditions, composting with frequent mixing or turning can produce usable compost within a month or two. Vermicomposting requires three to six months to turn food scraps into compost. In general, it is best to let compost 'cure' for several months—even after it appears finished, according to Cornell University.

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How Composting Works
Trash Audit

One of the main ingredients to effective composting is oxygen, so the absence of oxygen caused by the waste being too compressed makes for an ineffective breakdown. The addition of non-biodegradable waste like plastics also slows the process.

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