WACO, TEXAS — Two Central Texas Master Gardeners have a message for us: some of our trash could be the earth’s treasure.
They’re talking about a process called composting and they say it’s simple.
The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension says composting is simply the process of organic matter decomposition. McLennan County Master Gardeners Rianna Alvarado and Robin Liebe both use some of their food scraps and yard waste for the composting process instead of throwing them in the trash to be taken to a landfill. The AgriLife Extension says composting could help divert 20 to 30 percent of trash currently going to landfills.
Both master gardeners say the process for us is simple. You create a collection site in a semi-shaded area, then layer your food scraps and yard waste in that collection site, then let mother nature do the rest.
“It’s very uncomplicated. You’ve got greens and you’ve got browns. You’ve got carbons and you have nitrogens, and the ratio that you’re looking for is about a 30-to-1 ratio of carbons and nitrogens, so things like newspapers, things like cardboards, things like dried-up leaves—those are considered carbons, and green waste like from the kitchen, green waste like from the garden clippings, from yard grass—those are considered nitrogen,” Liebe said.
Alvarado has been composting for 16 years. She encourages anyone and everyone to compost, even those who don’t have a garden or a lawn.
“There’s no reason right now, even in an apartment, that we should be throwing food scraps into our garbage. First of all, it smells, we have to take our garbage out more often but also we could be harvesting those resources and turning them into something that, if we can’t use it, somebody can: a neighborhood, a community garden somewhere,” Alvarado said.
Liebe says she’s passionate about composting out of concern for Central Texas.
“As you well know, McLennan County is running out of space in our landfill and there’s a new one that’s being sighted in Axtell, and it is a huge trash footprint, and as the population continues to increase, we’ve got to do something to reduce that garbage footprint,” Liebe said.
Both Alvarado and Liebe encourage visiting the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension website to learn all about composting.
