Waste Not: Using Organic Matter Daily

Food waste, woodchips, grass, sticks, leaves, coffee grounds, paper towels

We don’t waste organic/biological matter anymore.

We turn food waste into eggs, bacon, and free chicken feed. We turn moldy food and manure into methane fuel for cooking and liquid fertilizer. We turn yard waste into black compost. We turn green biomass into compost. We turn woody biomass into heat and biochar. We don’t waste stuff anymore. Take a look at our breakdown for converting wastes into useful resources:

• Food waste:

  • Edible waste: Leftovers, toddler food waste

    • Fed to chickens & pigs

  • Moldy / gross edible waste: Old leftovers

    • Fed to black soldier fly larvae to produce grub feed for chickens

    • Fed to methane digester for cooking fuel and liquid fertilizer

  • Unedible (for humans) food waste: Veggie skins, carrot tops

    • Fed to chickens, pigs or composted

  • Egg shells & Coffee grounds:

    • Composted into new soil

    • Coffee grounds to Black soldier fly larvae

• Woodchips:

  • Garden paths

  • Eventually breaks down to soil

• Sticks:

  • Fuel for rocket mass heater

  • Fuel for firepit or double barrell retort to make biochar

• Leaves & Grass:

  • Composting materials

• Weeds:

  • Liquid fertilizer green biomass

  • Compost materials

• Paper and cardboard (no inks or glue):

  • Cardboard into compost

  • Shredded paper into compost

When these organic wastes are thrown into the trash and go to a landfill, they often decompose in anaerobic conditions resulting in putrid liquids and methane gas.

Tossing organics wastes into the trash costs a great deal of money to truck the weight of the wastes to landfills. The methane gas that escapes has over 80 times the warming power in the atmosphere as Co2.

When we waste these valuable “wastes” we are giving away free compost materials, free animal feed, free cooking fuel, and free fertilizer. By throwing away these materials we are increasing waste, increasing expenses, and breaking the nutrient cycle.

The more you think about natural cycles, the more harmful you realize our modern habits are regarding the mindless chucking of organic materials that should be incorporated back into the soil, rather than landfills.

Here are the habits and systems you need to convert organic wastes into valuable resources:

Habits:

• Save all food waste, coffee grounds, egg shells, food scraps, old leftovers, etc to:

  • Compost food scraps and coffee grounds into rich soil

  • Feed to chickens or pigs

  • Feed to a Methane Digester (like HomeBioGas)

  • Feed to black soldier fly larvae

    • And then feed them to chickens, birds or pigs

• Save paper products to compost

• Save grass clippings, leaves, and other biomass to compost

Systems:

• Backyard chickens

• Kune kune pigs, or another pig breed

• Black Soldier Fly Protopod or DIY box

• Methane Digester (like HomeBioGas)

For pro-level human waste management, consider using a composting toilet, sawdust toilet, or installing a methane digester toilet! When you can use these circular toilet systems for your human waste, you truly turn the nutrient cycle into a loop by converting your own waste into soil for trees and plants (do not use human waste compost directly on garden veggies).

Your organic trash truly is a treasure. Use it well!

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