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Turn your office’s food and yard scraps into rich compost by taking a few simple steps to compost your organic waste.

How to compost your organic waste at the office

Lower your office’s waste production by developing a solid waste management plan that reduces your total trash pile. You may also want to consider modifying your office landscaping practices—use a mulching lawnmower to leave grass clippings on the lawn and choose low-maintenance plants—to cut how much organic waste you generate. Then:

• Compost your landscaping waste: Your corporate outdoor space can generate a lot of organic waste when you combine grass clippings, leaves, weeds, and tree trimmings. To take care of these organics, you can establish your own compost pile or find a recycler willing to handle business organics. Many municipal waste programs include composting services, so check with them, too.
• Install a kitchen composter: Start a worm compost bin or get a sealed container in which to collect kitchen and coffee break scraps like banana peels, coffee grounds, and sandwich leftovers. If you’ve got an active-bacteria style compost bin, you won’t have to worry about what to do with the scraps since it’ll make the compost with very little effort. But if your office doesn’t have one of these miracle compost makers, choose several disposal options once the bin is full:
  • Search Earth911 for an organics recycler near you. Some may even pick up your compostables.
  • Have staff members take the scraps home to their own compost piles by turns.
  • Add the scraps to your landscaping compost pile.
  • Take the scraps to your local compost lady who’ll swap you for a bag of compost.

Find it! Office kitchen composters

Composting your organic waste helps you go green because...

• It keeps kitchen and garden waste out of overburdened landfills.
• It saves on trash bags and lawn bags often used to collect these materials.
• It saves the time, money, and transportation costs it takes to collect kitchen and garden waste.

On average, 87 percent of employees in American offices say green is at least somewhat important,[1] yet very few programs exist for recycling office workers’ one pound (about a loaf of bread) of organic-type daily trash.[2] In the US, people generated 251 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2006—or 4.6 pounds per person every day—while municipal composting recovered 21 million tons by receiving yard trimmings, food scraps, and other organic materials. Municipal solid waste is comprised primarily of organic materials with yard trimmings contributing the second-largest component (32.4 million tons, or almost 12.9 percent; paper contributes the most).[3]

In addition to yard waste, more than one-quarter of all food is tossed in the US every year, creating a waste pile that’s 96 billion pounds strong. This solid waste—which is approximately 12.4 percent of the total waste stream[4]—racks up a disposal bill of $1 billion annually.[5]

Organic waste’s biggest eco-ill is the generation of methane gas, a greenhouse gas that’s 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. When organics get piled together in a big hole and then covered over, they’re left in what’s called an anaerobic (sans oxygen) environment where methane gas production thrives.[6] Landfills are the single largest (34 percent) contributors to the production of US methane gas emissions.[7] Food waste also contributes to the formation of leachate (a potentially toxic sludge seeping from dumps).[8] Composting leftover food rather than trashing it can provide nutrient-rich fertilizing material while keeping landfills free of these detrimental substances.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) strongly recommends that people compost food scraps and yard trimmings to keep these materials out of landfills.[9] By composting your organics, you can do your part to recycle these wastes, especially if you work in an area that doesn't have municipal composting. As the American Composting Council says: "If you are not composting, you're not recycling."[10]

External links

• Home & Garden Television - Indoor Composting: No Gnats, No Smell: Choose an easy, convenient indoor compost option.
• Compost Guide - A Complete Guide to Composting: Read about how to compost, what to compost, and troubleshooting tips.
• Brooklyn Botanic Garden - Recycled Products: Turning Trash into Garden Tools": Learn how to reduce waste, compost, and use recycled materials in your garden and yard.
• McGill University - Waste Management: Composting
• The New York City Compost Project: A fantastic resource funded by the New York City Department of Sanitation that's geared towards urbanites interested in composting.
• US Environmental Protection Agency - How to Compost your Organic Waste