6 Reasons Why You Should Start Composting Now!

Composting is one of my biggest passions!

Turning food waste and other organic garden waste into nutritious soil to feed the garden really completes and closes the loop when it comes to being more self-sufficient and living more sustainably.

Everyone should consider composting as there are just so many benefits to bringing this habit into your daily life. From creating a smaller environmental footprint to becoming more self-sufficient to saving money in the process, composting is a great step to living more greener and if you needed more convincing, read on to find out just why you should start composting now!

Featured: The Composta Worm Farm and Garden in One

1) Composting Reduces Landfill Waste

One of my biggest motivations to compost is the fact that composting reduces landfill waste by stopping food waste from unnecessary going into landfill.

Did you know that in Australia, approximately 35%-50% of waste in an average household bin is food waste? This equates to more than 5 million tonnes of food waste in landfill every year, which can totally be prevented if everyone just composted. Not to mention green bin waste you can also reduce if you compost your lawn clippings, dried leaves, etc so that instead of wasting unnecessary energy resources shipping green bin waste to a facility to ‘compost’, instead, you compost it all on site on your property!

Composting was one of the first things my family started doing around 8 years ago and from the moment we started composting (back when I was still living at home), I noticed quite a noticeable reduction of waste going into our landfill bin. This one simple change in our lifestyle really inspired and motivated me to keep going and to look to other areas of waste to minimise to keep reducing our waste.

Remember, landfill is just ‘out of sight out of mind’. All these things we are throwing out each week in our bins are literally just being driven somewhere and buried. We’re literally just burying our problems away. Most of it won’t ever decompose properly. This is really unsustainable unfortunately!

So imagine if we all composted and reduced our waste by 35%. That’s an incredible start on our war on waste!

Featured: Maze Bokashi Indoor Compost Bin

2) Composting reduces Greenhouse Gases

By diverting unnecessary food waste from going to landfill, you in turn can help reduce greenhouse gases - what a win win! After rubbish ends up in landfill, the big pile of rubbish starts decomposing. However, this decomposing is not a good type of decomposing because when rubbish in landfill decomposes, it does so anaerobically (without air) and this creates harmful gases like methane. Methane and other greenhouse gases are extremely harmful to the environment and contribute to rising temperatures and climate change. Methane in particular is 25 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.

Remember, even if food waste is capable of decomposing in landfill, it creates greenhouse gas! So if you ‘get rid of’ your food waste via composting instead, there’ll be no greenhouse gas and that’s much better!

Featured: Maze Worm Farm

3) Composting creates free nutritious soil

When you combine food waste with dried leaves, or you use bokashi grains to ferment your waste, or feed your worms food which turn into worm castings, you end up with a product that is really, really nutritious. This nutritious matter can be used to enrich your soil and feed your plants, in turn helping you grow healthy veggies or ornamentals. It also helps condition soil and can even help assist in breaking down hard clay in your garden. And all of this, you get free from simply composting your food waste!

4) Composting saves money

When you start creating nutritious soil at home via composting, you end up saving money because you don’t have to buy packaged bags of compost or fertiliser anymore! Once you start composting, you begin to create your own little cycle of life. Discarded food waste break down into nutrients to feed the soil. The soil then helps veggies grow. You get veggies to eat and create food waste whilst cooking which you compost and so the cycle continues! You’re literally turning Waste into Money!

Featured: Maze 245L Compost Tumbler + Maze Kitchen Caddy

5) Composting is Easy

Once you understand the basics, composting is easy and there are many different methods to suit each individual household. For those with big gardens and plenty of garden waste like autumn leaves and lawn clippings, consider a compost bin or compost tumbler. For those who are in small spaces, consider something like a bokashi bin. Of course, you can most definitely mix and match and use multiple different systems and in particular, vermicomposting can come in so many different forms these days from the traditional worm farm to worm towers (a permaculturist’s fave!) and the Composta! If you’re interested in reading more, I’ve got heaps of posts covering all sorts of composting products which you can check out here.

6) Many local councils offer discounts on composting products

Did you know that many Australian councils offer discounts on purchasing composting products? Participating councils offer discounts or rebates subsidising products up to 80% off the RRP. If you’re interested in getting started, do check out Compost Revolution or your local council website to see what offers might apply to you!