Buildings & Grounds Maintenance

Rot, or composting, is the fourth step towards conserving resources and decreasing the amount of waste that ends up in landfills.

Composting is a great way to recycle yard and kitchen wastes. Composting is the decomposition of organic material, such as plant remains, to make a substance that is excellent for enriching garden or houseplant soil. After a plant or animal dies, bacteria begin to break down the remains. Various types of bacteria thrive in environments with specific conditions. In order to speed up the natural decomposition process, home composters manipulate the environment in a compost pile to attract bacteria that will reduce the pile with greatest speed.

Today the use of composting to turn organic wastes into a valuable resource is expanding rapidly in the United States, as landfill space becomes scarce and expensive and people become more aware of the impacts they have on the environment. Composting is a great way to recycle yard and kitchen wastes, which make up about 30% of the waste stream in the US, and the process is an important step in reducing the volume of garbage sent to landfills for disposal. Not only does it keep material out of the landfill, but when applied to your lawn or garden, compost increases the health of your soil by holding the nutrients that were stored in the decaying organic matter in a form that is easily absorbed by plant roots.

It's easy to learn how to compost. Composting can even be done, cleanly and unobtrusively, indoors in apartment buildings and condominiums! If you have a large yard, you might prefer the ease of composting in a three-bin system out by the back fence. Apartment and condominium residents can get into the act with indoor "vermicomposting"--using earthworms to recycle kitchen wastes (offices can even recycle coffee grounds and tea bags with vermicomposting).

How to Compost

Click this link for a basic description of composting practices.

Composting Systems

Click here for a detailed explanation of how to go about choosing the composting system/bin that is right for you.

Compost Ingredients and Materials to Avoid

Click here for a list of materials to avoid and the reasons for avoiding them.

Composting Resource List

Click here for a list of resources for the purchase of compost and bins in Santa Clara County.

Useful Links

Eco-Gardens Bay Area Webpage is a wealth of information on sustainable gardening and landscaping including water conservation, composting, and low chemical pest and weed management. Tour virtual gardens, get tips on soils and gardens, buy a compost bin, find some worms, and find local garden events all on one website! http://www.bayareaecogardens.org

The San Mateo County Website includes information for each of the above headings. It essentially guides the reader step by step through the entire process, with specific direction on how to build a compost pile: http://www.recycleworks.org/compost/index.html

A great resource for all kinds of composting including vermi-composting and compost toilets: http://www.howtocompost.org/

A fun, unintimidating site on the composting process with lots of bright colors. It reminds me of fun science books I had when I was younger: http://home.howstuffworks.com/composting.htm

A composting troubleshooting guide: http://www.lcida.org/composting.html

Another -- everything you ever needed/wanted to know -- about composting site. The format isn’t great, as all of the information is contained on one long page, but the content is great and includes a good list of compostables and troubleshooting tips: http://www.compostguide.com

A step-by-step composting tutorial in presentation form:
Short Form: http://www.compostinfo.com/tutorial/QuickTutorial.htm
Long Form: http://www.compostinfo.com/main/intro.htm

A brief explanation of how and why the composting process works, followed by an explanation of its benefits: http://vegweb.com/composting/how-to.shtml