The How-To Guide to Composting

As you can imagine, all you can eat dining halls lead to a large amount of food waste. While trayless dining helps to reduce food waste by 25-30%, there were still 13.7 tons of food waste between September through November 2017 in Commons Dining Hall. When food waste is sent to decompose in landfills it reacts with metals to produce harmful greenhouse gasses. Don't worry, that food wasn't just thrown away, it was composted through Natural Upcycling. Natural Upcycling is an upstate food scrap collection company that takes food waste and turns it into a reusable resource. With every ton of food waste that is composted, 0.9 tons of CO2 emissions are saved. There are several benefits to composting and it's easy to do! Follow these quick tips below to start composting today!

What you will need:
1) Carbon-rich material (leaves, straw, dead flowers)
2) Nitrogen-rich material (grass clippings, vegetable peelings, fruit rinds)
3) Garden soil
4) Site that is at least 3x3ft

To start your own compost you'll need to layer the material above starting with the carbon-rich material, then nitrogen-rich, followed by soil. Make sure to moisten each of the layers and continue piling on until the pile is 3ft high. Every couple of weeks the material will need to be turned by taking a fork or shovel to move the stuff at the center to the outside and vice versa. The compost needs to stay moist to allow for proper decomposition. You can always add new material to the compost, which is a great way to use your food scraps and add to your compost pile.