How to Make Waste Disappear

Can you imagine a world without garbage and landfills? In fact there is an easy solution to reduce waste and we can even make something useful out of it. Composting!

Maybe it doesn’t sound appealing at first; you know food scraps, banana peels, dirty napkins….but composting works like magic. Compost is made of organic materials (meaning that they are composed of carbon) and therefore will decompose and eventually, disappear (not quite, but it transforms into soil). To put it more academically: composting is a process in which organic matter is aerobically broken down into water, carbon dioxide, and some residual materials. It is Nature's way of recycling.

 

When food scraps and paper go to landfill they cannot properly breakdown, because they become buried and eventually run out of oxygen. Instead, they create methane (a potent greenhouse gas that is about 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the Earth). After using public transportation and changing how you heat your home, composting may be one of the biggest ways you can help fight climate collapse. And on top of that, when you compost your food scraps and paper, it becomes nutrient rich soil that can be used to grow more food! There are many other great benefits that you can check out here.

 

It doesn’t have to be hard to compost at home. In many cities you can put your compost in the green bin for curb-side pickup, which makes things easier. On campus, there are organic waste bins all over the campus. Recently, the 45 Mann residence announced that they were putting compost bins on the 1st and 6th floor, along with some compost kits for students. This is big news because it now means that all of the Residence buildings at UO have a compost option.  If your building or City doesn’t offer compost, here is a short video to help you make your own compost bin at home!

https://www.ottawainsights.ca/themes/environment-and-sustainability/other-resources/

In Canada, composting is actually on the rise. In the City Ottawa, for example, since the green bin program has been introduced, waste going to landfill has reduced by 18%. But even though composting at home has improved, there is still a lot of confusion when it comes to composting outside of the household. Some of this is because many commercial spaces don't offer composting (like malls and movie theaters) and some of this is because it's hard to know if some kinds of packaging are compostable.

Nevertheless, composting proves that waste can be turned into something beneficial, and what once fed us can go back to the earth. But nature's magic can't be started by itself, it needs you.

P.S: If you’re new to composting, or maybe you’re unsure of what you can compost, this website has a simple guide

~mariana carrillo - campus sustainability communications intern