{"id":15918,"date":"2020-05-12T19:04:03","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T03:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=15918"},"modified":"2020-05-12T19:04:03","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T03:04:03","slug":"natures-way-of-recycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/natures-way-of-recycling\/","title":{"rendered":"Nature’s way of Recycling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rylie Horrall<\/strong> |\u00a0 Lifestyle Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

Compost is made up of decayed or decaying organic material and could be compared to nature-style recycling. According to lessismore.org<\/a>, food and yard waste make up between 25 to 50% of trash that is thrown away. Because it can make up such a large portion of garbage, composting can significantly reduce the amount of overall trash someone procures.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most, if not all, organic matter that is thrown away in the kitchen or garden can be composted. For instance, coffee grounds and even paper filters can be put into a compost bin, along with tea bags, old newspapers, toothpicks, matches, pet and human hair, cut flowers and egg shells \u2014 but not the yolks or whites.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Goodhousekeeping.com<\/a> states that when composting, one should \u201caim for equal amounts of \u2018green\u2019 waste and \u2018brown\u2019 waste to keep (compost) healthy.\u201d Fruits and vegetables are common \u2018green\u2019 waste \u2014 or anything that can supply nitrogen \u2014 and \u2018brown\u2019 waste can consist of dry leaves and wood shavings \u2014 things that are rich in carbon. If both elements are balanced correctly, it should smell like earthy dirt; making sure that the compost bin is somewhere where it can receive enough oxygen and moisture will keep it from turning rotten.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to note that if a plant is infected with insects or a disease of some sort, it shouldn\u2019t be added into the compost. According to goodhousekeeping.com<\/a>, it can contaminate the pile and render it useless. Dairy and animal products such as bones should also just be thrown away, as the smell can become unpleasant or attract animals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Compost bins should be around 3 feet in diameter and ideally be placed outside, possibly in a backyard. It can have a closed top as well, for those who are worried about the smell or look of the compost. To prevent animals from messing with it, it\u2019s advised to set up fencing or chicken wire around it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After a few weeks, all the scraps will turn to soil that can be used for fertilizing a garden, which reduces the need to buy fertilizer. Some added benefits are that both water and trash bills can be reduced, as the compost can be moist enough as fertilizer that plants can be watered less, and the amount of trash being thrown out is lessened.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact the author at rhorrall17@wou.edu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rylie Horrall |\u00a0 Lifestyle Editor Compost is made up of decayed or decaying organic material and could be compared to nature-style recycling. According to lessismore.org, food and yard waste make up between 25 to 50% of trash that is thrown away. Because it can make up such a large portion of garbage, composting can significantly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":10277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"modified_by":"The Western Howl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}