House & Garden

You really should be composting! Here’s why.

Do you know that every Australian, on average, produces about 180 kg of food and garden waste a year? If that waste is sent to landfill to break down, the methane gas it produces as it rots can be as much as 16kgs of gas released into the atmosphere. 

Methane gas is a toxic greenhouse gas that is 21 times more harmful to global warming than carbon dioxide. Something we need to cut back on in a dramatic way if we want to slow global warming rates.

So how do we make a difference? It’s quite easy really. Do you remember your parents, or even grandparents composting when we were growing up? Well, according to latest research, the number of households composting has dropped from 54 to 38 per cent in the last decade. Surprising stats, aren’t they? Especially since we are more educated on recycling and the environment compared to a decade ago. 

Why aren’t people composting? I think the main factors are it seems complicated and time consuming (it really isn’t!), it might smell (in the right container, it shouldn’t) and lack of space (modern compost bins are quite compact). 

Unlike the compost heaps of old, the modern-day alternatives are quite easy to use and fit into most average sized house yards. There really isn’t a reason why you can’t compost. 

For smaller houses or apartments, you could try a worm farm to compost your waste. Most worm farms are quite small and can fit onto a balcony or alfresco area.  Just add your kitchen scraps to the worm farm, the worms eat the scraps and excrete the good stuff, which you can add to your plants or garden as a natural fertiliser. 

In collaboration with Maze products, we recently set up our own compost bin and worm farm (you might have seen us putting together the compost bin and worm farm on our Instagram stories). They were both easy to assemble too. 

Compost Tumbler

The Maze 245lt Compost Tumbler is our first foray into composting and reading the instructions, it seems easy enough to do. The Tumbler has two chambers, so you can decompose one side while filling the other. When the first compartment is full, you start on the second compartment. Once the second side is full, the first side is ready to empty, and the cycle continues. Easy, right?

The Compost Tumbler transforms leftover waste and garden refuse into a rich, nutrient dense compost with ease. Just add your scraps to the barrel and it does its thing. The tumbling style of the composter helps the compost break down quicker than a conventional compost bin. 

The most common question asked about composting, is ‘What can I compost?”.

Obviously, fruit and vegetable peelings and offcuts are compostable (coffee grounds, lettuce, potato and carrot peels, banana peels, avocado skins, etc.). 

Grass clippings

Tree leaves 

Black and white newspaper 

Printer paper 

Most disease-free yard waste (leaves, small branches etc)

Cardboard 

Vegetarian animal manure (e.g. cows, horses, rabbits, hamsters, etc.) 

Wood shavings or sawdust

Don’ts: cooked food, meats, cat or dog waste, coated paper (like Christmas wrappings), woodfire ash and treated woods (offcuts from pine or similar).

Compost Caddy

Of course, you need to be able to put the kitchen scraps into something and Maze have through of that too with their Compost Caddy. It seals in any smells and is easy to clean. 

Worm Farm

The Maze worm farm took five minutes to put together. So easy! And you don’t even have to do anything once it’s established, except add food scraps and maybe spray with some water, if they are getting dry. 

The worm liquid (wee) drains into the tray onto the ground, which you add a bit of water to it (ratio 10:1) and then give it to your plants. Worm tea (as it’s called) contains water soluble nutrients like nitrates, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, calcium and nitrogen fixing microbes. No wonder they call it liquid gold for plants!

I’m looking forward to seeing our plants and vegie patch thrive with fresh compost and worm tea. Plus, it’s also great to be able to do something to help with environment and cutting down on our residential waste. 

The Maze products can be purchased at your local Bunnings store. 

#SP This is a sponsored post in collaboration with Maze, as per our Disclosure Policy.

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