Peace Regional Eco Centre #5 - Backyard Composting

Peace Regional Eco Centre 2019 video series.
An overview of the local recycling initiatives and it's facilities.

Video #5 - Backyard Composting

Transcript:
Art Sawatzky:
If they have a lot of room, like say on an acreage, uh, most people will just put, put everything that's compostable uh, their yard waste, their kitchen scraps, stuff like that all in a pile. Now if you lived in town and you've got a smaller yard, and you probably have it nicely landscaped, and you don't want just some ugly pile in the corner, there's a few different products you can buy. The Tumble Composter is probably the most common. You put your, your kitchen scraps and a little bit of yard waste in there, making sure you've got a right mixture of, of, of brown and green, so wet waste and, and, and dry waste in there and you tumble it and just turn it daily and, or even weekly, doesn't really matter, depends how quick you want it to, to make compost. Then you use that in your flower, actually top dress your garden or even your lawn. If you live in an apartment you can still get a Tumble Composter and you can do it on your balcony, or even inside, you can it's not really smelly. The best way to start is, is you get a basket and just put your vegetable peelings and what not and, and keep that under the sink. When it gets full you, you put it in your, in your composter. There are Digesters, which is another way to compost and usually that is a, you know kind of a, a taller, maybe a cone shaped thing with a basket on the bottom and you can put that in yur garden, and you, you dig a small, shallow hole and uh, all that stuff will kind of liquify, and then it leeches out into your garden, and you move it around and it, it actually fertilizes. You know the best thing to do is, is Google it and find the one that works best for you. We have a few examples uh, that we built outside. It kind of matters on the space that you have to do it and uh, and how you want to do it and, and how much material you're gonna have. I mean, if you're just a, a single guy, you know, living in an apartment, you're probably not going to have that much, right? But you know, if you're a family of four living on an acreage, or, or six or eight even, like it's gonna be a lot more stuff and you need a, a different system.

Michael Atkinson:
It can be as simple as, as, as you want make it or as complex as you wanna make it, and I like to encourage people to mulch their grass and their leaves and leave it on the lawn. Or you can put it in a pile or put it around their, their shrubs or their trees. It's all nutrients.

Art:
Another way of composting um, that a lot of people find interesting is uh, uh, Vermicomposting. That's composting with worms, which that can be done indoors, or, on the balcony of your apartment or, or wherever. We have a display here and um, when we, we have kids come tour, it's, it's usually a highlight.