Kitchen Composting

Many areas have started charging you per bag of garbage that you throw away. One way to keep this cost down is by composting your scraps in your kitchen. Home composting is a great way to reduce the waste coming out of your household, and to help our landfills from becoming too large. Here are some things to know about composting at home.

Did You Know?

Each year, an average American household throws out 474 pounds of food waste. Yikes! If you pay by the pound for your garbage disposal, you can see right there how we are just wasting money. About 12% of the American waste stream comes from food scraps, and there are much better ways that we could be taking care of this problem.

Is Composting Allowed?

First you should check with the proper sources in your area to see if at-home composting is allowed. Some areas have strict regulations about composting, and some don’t even allow it. It is important to get the rules in your area right before starting with your composting journey.

Managing Your Scraps

When you are cooking, be sure to have a separate container for your food scraps. Any perishable food scraps can be kept in a plastic bag in your refrigerator until you are ready to empty it into the compost pile. Food scraps compost better when they are in smaller pieces, so you may want to think about shredding or cutting up the scraps for faster composting.

Things To Compost

Vegetable and fruit scraps
Old bread, pizza, crackers, donuts, cookies, noodles, or anything else made of flour
Grains like rice and barley
Coffee ground, tea bags, coffee filters (the unbleached ones work best)
Expired spices
Egg shells
Corn on the cob

Things Not To Compost

Meat scraps
Bones
Dairy products
Fish
Grease or oils

When planning out your kitchen remodel, take composting into consideration. You can build a container for your composting scraps into your waste management plan, along with your regular trash and recycling. Contact us at Cardigan Kitchens and Baths today and we’d love to help you plan out your new dream kitchen.