What happens if you don compost

In order to be successful, composting experts recommend that all "batches" of compost contain three ingredients: brown matter, green matter, and water. Brown matter includes materials such as twigs, branches, paper, and cardboard—basically anything dry or woody. In most cases, items in the "brown" category will be naturally brown, but there are certainly exceptions to that rule.

Brown matter contains carbon, which provides energy for the beneficial microbes in the compost. When it comes to composting, green matter refers to natural waste products that most likely were recently growing and have some semblance of moisture. This could include things like fruit and vegetable waste and grass clippings, but materials such as coffee grounds are also considered to be green matter.

In most cases, your green items will also provide your compost mixture with the adequate amount of moisture needed for proper breakdown, but it may be necessary to add some water during dry weather so the compost doesn't dry out. Some experts recommend about a ratio of brown to green compost, although opinions on this can vary. If you find your mixture is beginning to smell, you can add more brown material. If you're trying to figure out what around your home is fair game for composting, we have good news—a ton of it probably is!

From coffee grounds and used napkins to dinner scraps and paper shopping bags, there's a long list of things you can compost. When it comes to finding success while composting, the "best" things to compost are the ones you're going to remember to compost. Maybe that means you'll find great success with composting your cooking scraps after each meal but not much with other items around the house—and that's fine!

Even small steps can add up to a big impact. Do your best to maintain a good ratio of brown to green material and trust that your efforts will be worth it in the long run.

While the opportunities for items you can compost are almost endless, there are several types of things you should leave out of your compost pile if you want to have a successful and safe fertilizer in the end beyond the obvious, like plastic products.

One of the biggest categories is animal byproducts: meat, fish, egg, dairy, and poultry products. You may think animal byproducts such as these are alright to compost, but they can actually breed bacteria, cause odor problems, and result in pests. If your end goal with composting is to produce a useable fertilizer for your plants, you should also carefully consider what you compost and the potential harm it can do to your plants.

Items like coal or charcoal ash could contain substances harmful to plants, which could result in your vegetable garden dying by the time you get around to using your fertilizer. The same goes for leaves or twigs from black walnut trees—they contain the toxin juglone, which is known to harm many plants.

Trimmings from plants that have been previously treated with pesticides should also be avoided. Homes that have pets or young children roaming around should also carefully consider what they compost, lest a curious dog or toddler finds their way into the compost pile. Most information out there says you do, but is turning compost the main factor for success?

Some even turn it every 2 to 4 weeks. The reasoning behind this is that, in a few weeks, the core of the pile heats up and breaks down, leaving the edges unevenly decomposed. When turning the compost heap, you want to mix it so that you place the material from the edges in the middle — this way, everything breaks down evenly.

If it does, you may have gotten the ingredients wrong and not the heat levels. When in doubt, add more brown, and the anaerobic processes will slow down. You may have one of those compost tumblers , and that can ease up the process considerably, but is it enough for all your garden waste? I finished building my compost pile in November after clearing everything from my garden.

Sign up for our newsletter and get the latest in food, beauty, travel, fashion, plants, health, and other botanical curiosities. Sign up for our newsletter to enter for a chance to win a Farmacy gift set. Now until December 10th. Learn more about Farmacy.

The process is as easy as it is efficient, with millions of micro-organisms including bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes breaking down waste in the presence of oxygen. Reports, however, suggest that this is not true.

According to a brief filed in CBS News :. What would normally be organic matter that breaks down quickly becomes artificially preserved in these dark catacombs of containers, sometimes for decades. Most food waste comes from homes and food-based businesses like restaurants and grocers.

To address environmental concerns about food piling up in landfills, several municipalities including Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, and Massachusetts have implemented composting programs asking businesses and residents to put food waste in separate bins.

Some college cafeterias and landfills themselves are working to sort compostable materials from the rest of the trash, as well.