START feeding soils
Biodegradables such as grass clippings, leaves, paper products, food scraps should not be sent to a landfill. When burried in a landfill, biodegradable materials do not break down like they would in nature. They decompose anarobicly, without oxygen, which produces methane. Methane traps 84x more heat in our atmosphere than CO2 in our atmosphere over the short term. That can really heat up the planet and fast. Instead of putting biodegradable materials in the dump, we need to put them in backyard or curbside composting bins. If we do that, methane emissions coming from landfills are stopped cold. Instead of feeding our landfills with biowaste and other biodegradable materials, let’s feed our soils. Soil can help pull carbon down out of the atmosphere. We all know planting trees can help reduce green house gas reduction, but healthy soil stores 3x as much as trees, plants or the atmosphere. Lets put carbon back in the soil to help stabilize the climate.
STOP feeding landfills
Placer High School Environmental Club offers a Scraps to Soil program that makes composting easier for businesses, homes, and schools. They provide the bins, you provide your unwanted food scraps. The club transports those food scraps to Auburn area farmers. They feed livestock or compost the scraps. We also transport some of your food scraps directly to composting plants in the Auburn area. Composting your food scraps turns them into nutrient-rich soil. That soil is then used in farming, producing higher crop yield and eliminating the need for chemical fertilizers.
Join Scraps to Soil Auburn
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Food Waste Composting
Californians throw away nearly 6 million tons of food scraps or food waste each year. This represents about 18 percent of all the material that goes to landfills. Thats 304 lbs/person! As materials decompose, the pile heats up and should also shrink, eventually becoming no more than half its original height. Often, the pile's volume may shrink by 70 to 80 percent.
0.2#/sf > covers 30 SF of garden, enough to fertilize a or a 6x5 veggie plot per person.
To learn how to compost, see the CalRecycle home composting page or contact your city or county government. If you prefer to compost in a bin instead of an open pile download The Worm Guide to read all you need to know about starting a small worm bin.
Yard Waste Composting
Leaves and grass account for about 8% of the waste discarded to landfills in California. But in a landfill they generate significantly more greenhouse gas than they would in compost piles or bins.
Grasscycling
What could be easier? Set your mower to cut a little long, and leave the clippings on the lawn. No bags to empty when you mow, reduce the water needed on your lawn, reduce the need to fertilize and thereby reduce toxic runoff to creeks and lakes via the storm drains. Read more. Alternately, compost your grass clippings or use them as mulch directly from the lawn mower bag, and be miserly with your watering and fertilizing.