Composting: A Measure of Healthy and Nutritious Dietary Habits

I bought a small metal bin from a neighbor’s moving sale, lined it with sturdy plastic or jute bags (rice bag, soil or mulch bags) in which I made slits for drainage. I layered shredded newspaper at the bottom of the bag, tossed in used coffee grounds, vegetable peelings, and fruit rinds and then, per instructions, introduced the wigglers (to my dismay, I found only a few alive when I opened the package). I made sure the pile was aerated and moist but after a couple of weeks, I discovered that none of these worms were alive in the pile. Not to be dissuaded, I dug up a couple of earthworms from a friend’s garden and introduced them into the pile only to find a few days later that they too had perished, having crawled out of the bin. After these setbacks, I was determined to work out an approach of my own – one that did not require the introduction of any extraneous worms. Bacteria and fungi are ubiquitous and make their presence felt in the kitchen in food spoilage (moldy bread, rotting fruit, spoiling of milk) as well as in food creation (fermenting milk to produce yogurt, fermenting rice-lentil batter for South Indian savory delicacies, Korean Kimchi, etc.). So I decided to let the microbes around me decompose my kitchen scraps. I covered the small compost bin to retain humidity and left it in a warm place. Because of the tiny living space, speed is of the essence when it comes to processing the daily waste. I tear up chunks of peels/rinds into smaller pieces, crush shells of peanuts and pistachios, etc. before putting them into the bin. I avoid putting in walnut shells, stone seeds of nectarines, etc. as they take months to decompose. I also wipe dishes after cooking and the dinner plates after eating with paper napkins and toss them into the pile – this reduces the amount of soap and water needed to wash these utensils. I do add any leftover oils or soured milk to the pile, but after first soaking them into newspaper, drying them out a little, and then shredding them up into the bin. I occasionally mix in shredded newspaper to mop up the excess moisture that is released from the decomposition. I do not use material from our office paper shredder as I found it to contain shredded credit cards, envelopes with plastic windows and plastic lined papers. Wax/parchment paper that I use to wrap my lunch in seems to decompose readily. I stir the pile with my hand once a week or so to aerate it. 

With this setup, the pile began to get warm and seemed to be reducing in volume albeit slowly. One summer day, I brought a handful of soil from my friend’s garden (which had no macro invertebrates that I could see) and added it to the bin. Later in autumn, I added a handful of leaves and acorns of willow oaks gathered from the sidewalk on my walk back from work. Soon the pile was steaming hot, releasing an earthy fragrance similar to that of soil after the first rains. Composting was finally going on in earnest and I did not look back! Once the bag in the bin was full, I tied it up loosely and allowed the digestion to be completed in the bag. The results were absolutely impressive – within 2 months of filling up a bag, I had a dark, fine crumbly mix of rich compost which I could use as a top dressing for my indoor plants or extract its nutrients into water to feed the plants.