Nature.is

The Garden – Compost

One bag of household waste costs around 100 ISK [2007] to landfill, and even more to transport. You can diminish your household waste by 30-35% by composting. By composting garden waste and leftover food, a fine sort of compost can be produced, which can be used as fertilizer and a soil additive in the garden. The metamorphosis from waste product to compost admittedly takes a few months and even years, depending on the method used, but for those that have access to a garden plot or a composting facility, composting can be an enjoyable way of diminishing waste and producing own fertilizer.

Everything can be put into the compost except meat- and fish.

In order to get the best results, the compost has to be kept sufficiently moist and it is a good idea to put some old newspapers and garden waste in the compost container along with the leftover food. The method chosen depends entirely on whether a special compost container is used or whether simpler methods such as a wooden box or a hole in the ground are used.

Everything decomposes in the end so the method only influences the time it takes the compost heap to turn into real compost.On an open compost heap, the process takes around 3 years but under prime conditions in a compost container the process may take only a few months. All earth is made from decomposed plant material anyway so there is no danger of anything going wrong.

Large compost containers made from thick plastic are a contradiction to environmental thought and not at all environmentally friendly because it can take thousands of years for the plastic to decompose. Sometimes plastic turns into mermaid tears; plastic drops that can have an enormously negative impact on the ocean’s environment if they end up there.

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