Ask the Experts: Compost

Environmentally conscious couple Michael and Maria Wedum are on a mission to help the City of Savannah divert food scraps from the landfill and restore the depleted soils of the area’s local farms. The couple founded COR Composting (COR stands for Code of Return) two years ago with a simple principle in mind - close the loop!

COR Composting not only works with restaurants and businesses to keep their food waste out of landfills, but they also work with individuals. For those who live within their service area in Savannah, a COR Compost bucket can be purchased for collecting appropriate food waste and exchanged on a weekly basis for an empty bucket.

For those who want to compost for their own use in the garden or who don’t live in Savannah, the couple offers free consultations by phone or email.

I spoke with Maria to learn more about backyard composting and to put together some basic information to encourage anyone who might be thinking of composting and answer some basic questions a new composter might have.

What is compost?

Composting is the decomposition of organic based material. And when I say “organic” it’s what was once living or carbon-based. The process is done by micro-organisms that feed off these sources and then creates a final product full of nutrients and the kind of texture and mass that is really great for a growing medium for plants.

Why is composting important?

You may feel that as one person, you’re not going to make a difference. But if we all take that little bit of change, little bit of accountability and take back that power, we can create positive solutions for the future and resiliency for yourself and your community and that’s super inspiring.

A lot of people think that compost is only important for someone who is interested in gardening, but compost has so many environmental benefits … I could ramble on for hours.

Reducing greenhouse gasses is an important one. The reason why it’s so effective in reducing greenhouse gasses is with composting you have the natural process of decomposition in the forest. You have the perfect process of it in its natural form, so you still get the carbon cycle with that.

The problem with food waste being diverted into landfills is it creates an anaerobic process which emits very harmful greenhouse gas emissions. And on those large levels, it makes a really large difference in the environment.

With that being said, composting can cut back almost 98% of those emissions and also odors which are associated with landfills. So there’s lots of positive benefits of that when you’re talking about a large amount of waste from a society.

We have to, at a certain point, come up with a better way - a more efficient way - to process our waste. Get it out of a linear cycle and get it into a circular cycle where we’re actually creating a regenerative natural resource.

And that’s what’s so awesome about compost! It’s not waste anymore, it’s a valuable resource. We all have the waste and we have to figure out what to do with it and to do this solves so many parts of those problems that are out there.

Compost can also help conserve water, decrease the need for chemicals and help build and improve the health of soil.

How can I get started?

We try to encourage someone who has backyard space and would like to do composting. We offer a lot of free consultations by email or phone. And also, we do site consultations as well.

Composting can be very simple but there are a lot of different ways that it can be done depending on how quickly you want it turned over. Are you an avid gardener and want to use it regularly or just wanting to keep it out of the landfill and could use it once a year? How much money do you want to put in it? Does it need to meet certain homeowner requirements for appearance?

I try to ask as many questions as possible and make it as customized as possible so that people won’t get overwhelmed and will keep doing it.

Don’t be intimidated and depending on expectations, it can be as involved or uninvolved as possible.

It’s good to have an enclosure that can allow air flow … what all living things need - food, air and water. It can be as simple as a pile, a purchased compost bin, or an enclosure you make yourself.

For backyard composting there are a few limitations, mostly due to odors and time to breakdown. The general rule you want to think about is “if it grows, it goes”. So any natural, organic based product for the most part you can compost that.

For typical backyard compost, you usually will want to leave meats and dairy out of the equation because those animal proteins are hard to break down and you don’t always have the most efficient results.

Fruits, veggies, coffee grounds, tea, egg shells, spices. You can do things like nuts and rinds if not excessively - they might not break down as quickly as fruits and vegetables.

What’s important to understand is most of your food waste coming from your kitchen is nitrogen based, so you’ll need to add equal amounts of carbon to that nitrogen. So, whatever you put in as far as your food waste, you want to make sure that you’re adding typically some of the drier materials like leaves, straw, wood chips, different paper products. You just want to make sure that you’re shredding those things up a little bit more.

If you’re not going to be super active with mixing it and working it to break it down more quickly. And you’re just wanting to divert the food waste, just use lasagna layering technique. Put down a carbon layer of straw and then food waste, then straw… that will keep bugs and animals out, keep the smell down and act as a bio-filter.

What if I want to keep my food waste out of thelandfill but don’t have the space/time/desire tocompost it myself?

I try to think of different ways people can divert food waste like reaching out to gardening clubs. People who are really avid and geeky about composting - they might be interested in taking your food waste. Or find out what a community garden in your area might be doing, some of them have a compost bin. Or you could look into starting one up in your neighborhood.

Keeping food waste out of the landfill is the important thing.

If you live in the Savannah area, be sure to check out COR Compost’s residential collection program every Saturday at Forsyth Market. For more information visit their website!