Except in some parts of the rural South, eco friendly living has become a popular notion, and people everywhere are striving to follow it. Car commercials, paper towels, and a thousand bumper stickers all declare the ways in which they’re doing their part for the earth. Ordinary citizens who don’t have time to read every book on the subject, though, can feel lost about the whole thing, uncertain in what ways they can practically restructure their lives. Switching to wind energy or riding a bike to work can be too expensive or impractical, but composting is a free and effortless method of eco friendly living.
The first step is the most involved but still simple: creating a compost pile. Garden stores sell plastic, ventilated structures for this very purpose, but a cheaper method is simply to make a corral of chicken wire. Compost piles rarely smell, but for the sake of aesthetics, they should be positioned in an unobtrusive place. Apartment dwellers may be at a loss here, but they can ask the landlord if their city offers compost pickup alongside recycling—or they can find a nearby community garden that will accept their refuse.
Only a small kitchen receptacle is then needed: big enough to hold a few days of material but small enough to throw out before mold attacks and fruit flies congregate. Meats and dairy products cannot be composted—only discarded plant remains and egg shells, both of which become almost odorless when drying out in the open air. Composting may seem like a small, meaningless separation when subtracting from the garbage, but these materials go back into nourishing the earth rather than take up space in a chemically ridden landfill. The buildup is slow but powerful: an effective and simple method toward a more sustainable earth.
