Appealing Piles of Peels!

Have you been wondering what actually happens when you throw your banana peel in one of those bins marked “Compost: Food Scraps Only”? Is it worth the extra effort to collect your food waste separately from your trash and find a compost bin to throw it in? Or does it all end up in the same place in the end?

The city of Berkeley has fairly recently joined its neighbor cities in implementing a highly successful curbside recycling program. As most students at Cal come from other areas of California or even farther abroad, we are largely unfamiliar with this system and its benefits. In the past, residents of urban areas such as Oakland and Berkeley would never have considered composting without a large yard or garden at their disposal. Now, however, everyone can compost all the time, even college students living in dorms or apartments.

All the waste that goes into those large green bins is collected and sent to a composting facility (not a landfill) where it is made into large mounds 50 yards long and 5 feet high. These mounds are periodically stirred and kept moist for another 2-3 months, after which time all that “trash” has become fertile black soil chock full of nutrients. This soil is used in city landscaping, sold to local farmers, and sometimes even donated to small nonprofit organizations such as school gardens. In this way, no actual waste is produced, and the size of landfills is significantly reduced. More importantly, there is less need for inorganic fertilizers that may leach excess nutrients into groundwater and streams. Instead of using gallons of fossil fuels to create nitrogen-rich fertilizers for our crops, we can let nature do it instead, and avoid polluting our waters in the process!

I know that all this sounds too good to be true, but now let me make it even better. Composting is easy! All you have to do is keep an extra trash bin in your room and designate as your compost bin. Then, whenever it gets full of food waste, take it out to one of the zillions of official compost bins in you dorms, on campus, or elsewhere in the city of Berkeley. Any fruit or vegetable peels, bones, paper products, or plastic that is clearly marked as being compostable can be thrown in a compost bin. Since city officials are already doing most of the work for you, why not compost? Just remember that with each banana peel you toss in the green bin, you are saving energy, helping local farmers, reducing pollution, driving down the size of landfills, and allowing the environment replenish itself the natural way.

Oh, and if you’re not fortunate enough to live in beautiful Berkeley, composting
still an incredibly easy process. Though special composting bins are prevalent, and no doubt effective, making rich compost is as easy as keeping a special pile or box or bin for your plant and food scraps in your yard and turning it every once in a while.

-Sara