Composting

If you haven't seen it already, click here to check out EPA's June 2005 Tribal Waste Journal on Composting.

What is it?

Why compost?

Adding compost to your garden will make your plants grow bigger and better because it contains many nutrients. Adding compost to your soil also increases its water holding capacity.

What you can and cannot compost

	Kitchen waste: vegetable/fruit peelings and scraps, spoiled food, coffee grounds (with filter), tea bags, crushed egg shells, breads; cooked pasta and rice
	Green leaves
	Grass
	Hay
	Manure (horse, cow, sheep and poultry)
	Weeds, flowers, garden waste (only use weeds before they go to seed)

Browns

	Dry leaves
	Bark chips
	Straw
	Prunings and cuttings
	Evergreen needles
	Dryer/vacuum lint
	Hair
	Cardboard/paper
	Sawdust

	Meat, bones, fatty food wastes such as butter, cheese, oil and salad dressing
	Dairy products
	Human waste or Pet waste (can contain disease organisms)
	Walnut shells

	Plants or grass clippings that were treated with chemicals
	Weeds with mature seeds, destructive weeds (morning glory, sheep sorrel, ivy, etc.) (may re-sprout in your compost pile!)
	Chemically-treated wood products (may contain arsenic!)
	Diseased or insect-infected plants
	Charcoal or coal ashes

Basics of composting
Composting is really very simple and you can put as much work (or not) into it as you want to. Here are the basic requirements for composting:

Compost is made by billions of microbes (tiny bugs, fungi, etc.) that digest the food you give to them. Worms, insects, and their relatives will often also help out the microbes. Like people, these living things need air, water, and food. If you give them these basic things, they will happily turn your organic waste into compost.

As mentioned above, there are two major categories of food that composting microbes need.

'Greens' are fresh (and often green) and examples are given above in the “what you can compost” section. Greens have a higher amount of nitrogen in them, compared to browns.

'Browns' are dry and dead plant materials and examples are given above in the “what you can’t compost” section. Browns have a higher amount of carbon in them.

Composting requires a balance of nitrogen and carbon (i.e. of greens and browns) and the general rule is, 1 part greens to 3 parts browns. This means you need to add three times the amount of browns than greens to your compost pile.

Composting microbes are aerobic -- they don’t work well unless they are provided with air. Without air, anaerobic (non-air needing) microbes take over. Anaerobic microbes do decompose your organic waste but very slowly and often with a rotting garbage smell! So it's important to make a lot of passageways for air in your compost pile. To make sure you have plenty of air in your compost pile turn the pile. Turning the pile means completely breaking it apart with a shovel or other tool you have around and then piling it back together in a more 'fluffed-up' condition. .

Ideally, your pile should be as moist as a wrung-out sponge for the microbes to be happy. If your pile is drier than this, the composting process will be very slow. If your pile is a lot wetter, the organics will be so heavy that they will tend to mat down and prevent air from getting into the pile, which will again slow the composting process down (and might even create anaerobic odor problems!). If it rains a lot in your community you might want to use a tarp to help keep the rain off the pile to prevent sogginess.

OK – so now I know the basics. How do I actually start composting?

Location - where to place your compost pile
Choose a convenient place to put your compost pile. Ideally it should be located on level ground. It should also be at a place that has access to a water supply. Microbes like heat, and since our winters are pretty cold, select a spot that receives maximum heat and sunlight. Don’t put your compost pile right up against a wood building or tree because the wood will eventually decay.

Size of your composting system
The size of your compost pile needs to be big enough to hold heat in but still small enough to be able to turn to let air in. You can choose to build a bin (or buy a bin) to compost in, or just build your pile on the ground. For information about composting in a bin, see our Composting equipment section below. If you choose to compost without a bin and just build your pile on the ground, a good size for a compost pile is 3 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet high.

If you’ll be compositing a lot of waste (for example collecting organic waste from most of your community) you might want to use the “windrow” method. The “windrow” method of composting is where food waste and a bulking agent (sawdust or wood chips) are mixed and then heaped in long rows. Gustavus, a southeast community in Alaska, composts food wastes from the community at their landfill and use the windrow method as can be seen in these photos below:

For more photos of Gustavus’s composting program, and to read all about it, see our composting examples section below, or CLICK HERE.

Composting equipment

1) Wire Mesh Bin http://www.digitalseed.com/composter/bins/wirebin.html

2) Wood Pallet Bin http://www.digitalseed.com/composter/bins/palletbin.html

3) Three-Bin Wood Composter http://oldgrowth.org/compost/bin1.html

Composters Dot Com Phone: 1 (877) 204-7336 http://www.composters.com

Variety of composting companies
http://www.compostinfo.com/tutorial/Bins.htm#ImmobileBin

Composting resources in Alaska

The Cooperative Extension has some great composting publications and a “how to compost video.” They also offer composting workshops from time to time.
Contact Julie Riley at 786-6306 or Sue at 786-6300.

Click on the following to view their composting publications:

The Compost Heap in Alaska

Composting in Coastal Alaska

Make Your Own Complete Fertilizer

Composting with Worms

Here is a list of all of their publications www.uaf.edu/coop-ext/publications/anrpubs.html

The Anchorage Composting Facility is a privately owned non-profit Corporation. Call John Dean to ask him anything about composting!
PO Box 92229
Anchorage, AK 99509-2229
Phone: 243-8577

Composting tips from the Alaska Master Gardener Association

“In Glennallen where -60 F degree temperatures are common December through February, try mulching with tundra moss. In the spring, add it to the compost heap or burn some of it--mosquitoes hate it. ”
-Tom Thompson, Glennallen

“In Cordova, cold soils, a general absence of heat & a total lack of topsoil has encouraged this me to search for new ways to compost. I make soil from composted peat, glacial sand & silt, old sawdust, vermiculite, etc.”
-Ruth Fairall, Cordova

What about composting fish?

A really GREAT instructional video about fish waste composting is available from:
National Fisheries Institute
1525 Wilson Blvd., Suite 500
Arlington, VA 22209
Phone: 703-524-8880

Give them a call to order a copy!

Great composting examples in Alaska!

Kasaan

The Kasaan School and the Organized Village of Kassan developed a successful worm composting project in their community. Students constructed composting bins and used red worms and kitchen vegetable waste collected from community members to make the compost.

Click here to view pictures of Kasaan’s composting program, and to read all about how they compost.

Gustavus

Haines

Haines Sanitation Inc. (HSI) is currently perfecting the first “in-vessel” municipal waste composting operation in Alaska. The process requires raw sewage and will decontaminate both solid waste and sewage. By the end of summer 2003, HSI should have completed the installation and will be producing as close to a “Class A” compost as possible using municipal garbage!

Kake

Composting websites