How To Divide Garbage To Minimize The Landfill
In most communities, reducing, reusing, and recycling waste has become a standard practice to minimize the amount of garbage going into landfills. Sorting your waste will often depend on the recycling program in your community. Most have guidelines published for residents. There are general guidelines, though.
Sorting garbage can reduce the impact on landfill by about 75%. The first step is to separate the organic/food waste from all the other garbage. That means anything that has grown; vegetable matter, meat, yard waste, tea bags, coffee grounds, eggshells and table scraps. These materials are all compostable, and many communities use the compost for plants and trees by roadsides and in town gardens, and sometimes sell the compost to home gardeners. It is also possible to compost in your own backyard. Compost bins are easy to construct, and once you have good compost up and running, it practically takes care of itself.
The next category of garbage is the bottles, tin foil and cans. This might include juice and milk cartons, plastic bags, bubble wrap, rigid plastic packaging. These items should be rinsed before sorting. They can all be diverted from landfill and sent for recycling. Old tires and building materials can also be diverted from landfill for recycling. Recycling equipment is used to help process these materials. Some of the products being made from these recyclables are floor tiles, road surfaces, sandals, swings, carpeting, plastic furniture and many other imaginative and creative products.
Paper and cardboard is the other broad category. This would include cardboard boxes that food such as cereal comes in. It would also include newspapers, letters and envelopes, toilet paper rolls, and any other dry clean paper product. Boxes should be flattened to minimize the bulk and making the pick-up more efficient. Paper and paper products are recycled into paper and paper products. There is an increasing demand for recycled paper from consumers and companies. The process is kinder to the environment, and calls for fewer trees to be felled for paper. Landfills are filling up across the continent. By removing those items that can be recycled – paper, cardboard, glass, wood, organic matter – we reduce the impact on landfill sites. We also minimize the impact of landfill seepage into the water table. Making our garbage as small as possible reduces our imprint on the planet, and extends the life and health of our landfills.
When organic matter ends up in a landfill, the normal breakdown into nutrients does not occur, because the fill is packed so tightly that air does not circulate around the decaying matter. Rather than return nutrients to the earth, organic matter under those conditions produces methane, which contributes to global warming. Landfills become clogged with items that will never degrade, such as plastics. In the manufacturing process, petroleum, the primary element of plastics, is altered so that it is not recognized by the bacteria and enzymes that break down matter to its reusable form. Removing these products from landfill and sending them off to be reused is a more efficient way of handling the resources that are in limited supply. There are other products that may degrade naturally if exposed to sunlight, but that also is unlikely in a heavily packed landfill. Again, removing those items from that stream, and sending them to new uses through recycling saves energy, resources and the health of the planet.
Recycling can take up a lot of space. Using compaction equipment to help compress recyclables is a great way to not only speed up the process, but save time and money in the long run. Look up on compactor today – improve your waste removal and disposal!
Our Biogas Kitchen
In Germany it was our common practice to compost all of our kitchen waste. Now that we have built an ARTI India style biogas digestor on the porch, however, we only compost the tissue paper, napkins, cardboard, tea-bags and fibrous, cellulosic material that our household generates as garbage. All the food waste (including flower petals and banana peels) go into the blender with warm water and then into the biogas digestor. What we get out is liquid fertilizer for our rooftop herb, berry and vegetable garden, and biogas. We are still experimenting with the yields of gas, but are so far averaging 10 minutes a day for the small size of our digestor and the small quantities of food waste our family of 2 (with a baby) generates. Two days worth of kitchen waste gives us enough gas to usefully cook for 20 or 30 minutes.
Duration : 0:5:18
Save our cities
Worms can save the world.
Duration : 0:2:12
Worm Composting
Introducing worm composting.
Duration : 0:1:37
How to Compost : When a Compost Heap is Ready
Learn when compost heaps or compost bins are ready depending on the temperature and climate and learn about using mulch in this free gardening video.
Duration : 0:1:45
Organic Compost Gardening : Watering Organic Compost
Adding inoculants to water can help add healthy nutrients to your organic compost pile. Learn some tips for watering your compost pile from a professional gardener in this free gardening video.
Duration : 0:2:45
Organic Compost Gardening : Organic Compost Soil Aeration
Aerating the soil is an important part of preparing your organic compost pile. Learn to aerate the soil for easy drainage from a professional organic gardener in this free gardening video.
Duration : 0:1:32
Organic Compost Gardening : Adding Grass & Weeds to Organic Compost
Adding the grass and weeds to your organic compost pile is a diligent and important process. Learn to organize your materials in layers from a professional organic gardener in this free gardening video.
Duration : 0:1:16
Organic Compost Gardening : Organic Compost Gardening Tools
There are a few gardening tools that are quite useful for creating your own organic compost. Learn to use pitchforks and other gardening accessories from a professional organic gardener in this free gardening video.
Duration : 0:1:8
Organic Compost Gardening : Picking Dirt for Organic Compost
Dirt is another important ingredient to use when creating your own organic compost pile. Learn what dirt to use when creating your own compost pile from a professional organic gardener in this free gardening video.
Duration : 0:1:10