by Guest Columnist Mark Gregory
June 27, 2001

Incorporating composting into your daily routine lets you:

Reduce your food waste into a useful product. In our household, we compost food scraps (of the organic variety; separating out meat scraps).

Recycle these table scraps into a useable form which you can spread on your gardens to enhance their yield and beauty.

Reuse what you eat so as to help save your part of the planet.

How do you start to compost? First off, you need a bin. The bin you choose needs to allow for aeration of the material composted (compost needs oxygen to stay alive) as well as be able to tolerate moisture (we all know how it rains in this part of the world). There are many different styles of bins commercially available; or you can make your own. We have found it useful to have bins with a lower access opening to allow for efficient removal of the finished product.

Start with a layer of organic material (such as your grass/hay clippings); add material to be composted; add more organic material on top; moisten as needed. A few caveats: do not compost meat; its presence in composting material helps to draw wildlife to it and meat and bones do not break down as readily. Although you do not need to saturate the compost, you do need moisture to help the mix "cook" down into useful compost. Some people let the rain do the work. We, however, keep our compost bins covered to keep the lions and tigers and bears at bay (let alone the small critters that inhabit our chunk of rural Franklin County). As in any cooking operation, you need to stir and mix the material. If you do not mix, the compost will not cook as well and will take longer to produce.

Composting obviously saves on the garbage stream leaving your residence. A big plus for us has been that we have been able to use a natural product that we have generated on site and not have to use commercial fertilizers. In this way, we cut costs, fight globalized commercialism, and feel good about our place in the world all at the same time.

Here are a few good links to help you on your way.

A good page for introductory material is:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/hil/hil-8100.html

One of several pages of links to info on the composting lifestyle:
http://www.a-horizon.com/compost/compost_menu.html

The official state page:
http://www.state.ma.us/dep/consumer/compost.htm, contains a link to information on obtaining compost bins.

Of course, you can always initiate your own composting search using the search engine of your choice. And don’t be afraid to give the good folks at Franklin County Solid Waste Management District a call at 413-772-2438. They'll be glad to help.

Happy Composting.

Mark Gregory is a transplant to the Pioneer Valley from Binghamton, NY. After working in social services for many years, he's in the process of making a career change;. Mark and his wife Margo line in Montague.

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