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Composting

Green waste from your yard and garden accounts for approximately 25% of the refuse being hauled from your home each week. By composting, you can improve your soil for a more productive vegetable or flower garden, and help your community at the same time.

What is Composting?

Composting is a form of recycling that occurs in nature as vegetation falls to the ground and slowly decays. This process provides minerals and nutrients needed by soil, plants and small animals. Setting up a composting system in your backyard speeds up this natural process. Organic materials like fruits, vegetables, yard and garden waste are collected and then decomposed with the help of oxygen and water.

The resulting material is called humus, an important component of healthy soil. The humus that results from composting adds nutrients to the soil that can increase the health of your plants and help save money ordinarily spent on fertilizers.

Vermiposting

Vermiposting is simply composting with worms. The best kind of earthworm to use is the red worm (a.k.a "red wigglers"). These worms are incredible garbage eaters! They eat and expel their own weight every day so even a small bin of red worms will produce many kilograms of rich sweet-smelling compost.

Vermiposting bin available HERE

Composting/Vermiposting Bins

The City of Long Beach has three types of backyard composting bins available for residents to purchase at a reduced price.

Myths and Facts About Composting

 
  Myth:
Compost creates odors and attracts pests.		 Fact:
Organic material that is well-covered will not attract insects or animals.
 
  Myth:
Compost is unsightly.		 Fact:
Attractive, low-cost compost enclosures can be built or purchased.
 
  Myth:
Composting is too time-consuming.		 Fact:
A compost bin can be assembled in under an hour. You can turn your compost as often or as seldom as your schedule allows, and adding new material takes only a few minutes.
   

Do's and Don'ts of Composting

  DO compost:
  • Fruit and vegetable scraps
  • Egg and nut shells
  • Coffee and tea grounds
  • Weeds, leaves and bark
  • Grass and plant trimmings
  • Wood chips, sawdust and ashes
   DO NOT compost:
  • Large branches or logs (unless shredded)
  • Plastics or synthetic fibers
  • Manure from carnivorous (meat eating) animals
  • Diseased plants or plants suffering from severe insect attack
  • Invasive plants and weeds (e.g., ivy, succulents, morning glory)
  • Plants that have been treated with herbicides
  • Charcoal ashes
  • Bones

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Next workshop:

Free
Smart-Gardening, Vermiposting
& Composting Workshop

Learn how to turn your lawn and yard trimmings into a beneficial soil amendment. Workshops are held on the third Saturday of every month.

NEXT AVAILABLE WORKSHOP:
Saturday
February 20, 2010
10:30 A.M. – 12:30 P.M.
2929 E. Willow Street
Long Beach

Please call to enroll:
(562) 570-4694

Or email:
recycle@longbeach-recycles.org

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Environmental Services Bureau
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