THE WOODLANDS, Texas – On this Earth Day, we wanted to try our hand at another, efficient, sustainable, and natural way that you can rid of food waste instead of just tossing it into the garbage.
We’re talking about COMPOSTING.
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KPRC 2′s Digital Reporter Moriah Ballard hung out with the crew over at ZeroWaste Houston where they showed us the process from start to finish.
Owner and founder of ZeroWaste Houston Leo Brito says that composting is the Earth’s way of naturally recycling our discarded food.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency describes composting as a controlled, aerobic (oxygen-required) process that converts organic materials into a nutrient-rich, biologically stable soil amendment or mulch through natural decomposition.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Loss Project, Americans throw away more than 25%—some 25 million tons—of all the food we produce for domestic sale and consumption.
Brito said that his team is working to take those millions of tons and prevent them from going to landfills, which are a continued issue across parts of America.
A study done by the University of Colorado Boulder reports that the 3,000 active landfills that hold the bulk of our waste are reaching their capacity, with some even overflowing.
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Their website explains that landfills “are necessary for the proper disposal of solid waste. They reduce the amount of waste that makes it into the environment, help to prevent disease transmission, and keep communities clean. However, landfills still have significant environmental and social impact. While landfills are a societal necessity, there are practices that can reduce the reliance on landfills and decrease their effects on the biosphere.”
Although it seems like we’re always hearing things about reducing our carbon footprint, recycling, and how we should be making this world a better place, environmentally, for future generations, sometimes it doesn’t feel like the work being done is enough to, for lack of better terms, ‘reverse the curse’.
Brito says that’s not entirely true, and that you can start the composting process at your house for as little as $10.
For more information, check out their website at ZeroWasteHoustonTX.com.