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Recycling Your Kitchen Waste into Compost Easily

Many of our garden maintenance customers ask about making compost from kitchen and garden waste and we are

Kitchen Waste Digester
Kitchen Waste Digester

always keen on new technologies and ideas about how to do that easily and cleanly. As you probably know if you have ever managed a compost heap that it can get smelly and turn downright putrid if you get it wrong.

Earth Probiotic Recycling Solutions Pty. Ltd. is a recycling business focused on the management and reuse of food-waste.

Food-waste, when dumped, is an environmental hazard.  During the putrefying process, food-waste produces greenhouse gases including methane, attracts vermin, provides an ideal breeding ground for pathogenic bacteria and pollutes above and below-ground water sources.

However, when treated properly food-waste can be reused as a microbial rich soil enhancer. And any gardener likes that idea.

Earth Probiotic’s solution is a fermentation (vs. decomposing) process.  Using bokashi – wheat-bran innoculated with effective microorganisms – food-waste is fermented in anaerobic drums and digesters.  Through this process, ALL food-waste can be treated including cooked and uncooked meat, sea-food, dairy, onions, citrus and small bones.

During the fermentation process pathogens are removed through competitive exclusion.  Good bacteria colonises the food-waste matrix and makes it ready for reapplication into soil and compost.

Not only is the food-waste thus now reusable, the end product is rich in essential microbial life and thus has the ability to super-charge plant and vegetable growth.

Earth Probiotic offers food-waste management solutions for households and businesses.

Business Food-Waste Solutions

As no two commercial kitchens are the same, Earth Probiotic offers a bespoke solution.  Solutions can be either:

Setting up on-site composting facilities so that food-waste can be reused in the grounds of the entity.
Providing a collection and replacement solution where fermentation drums are collected and replaced with clean ones.  Food-waste is taken to Earth Probiotic’s composting facility in northern Johannesburg.

For both solutions, in-kitchen separation is necessary.

Earth Probiotic provides fermentation drums, separation drums and bokashi.  Bokashi should be added to the food-waste during the separation process.

Successful implementations include Protea Hotels (Witbank, Capital, Highveld), The Peech Hotel, and a completed trial at Nando’s in Savoy.  Benefits of the system listed are:

Cleaner more easily managed kitchens.
Significantly fewer flies and other pests.
Reduced odours.
Increased waste awareness and thus savings.
Financial savings on pest deterrents, rubbish bags, cleaning products and bin pick-up costs.

Domestic Food-Waste Solutions

Imported digesters manufactured by SCD Probiotics in Thailand.  These digesters (also called composters) are anaerobic probiotic-infused plastic bins.
Local digesters manufactured in South Africa.  These bins are available in 20/25l for domestic and small B&B use.
Bokashi bran which is essential for the effective fermentation of the food-waste.  Bokashi is locally brewed using SCD Probiotics technology.
Food-waste is deposited in the digester and then progressively layered with bokashi.  During the process there are no bad odours, no fly infestation and no roaches.  It’s the cleanest and easiest and cleanest way to manage your food-waste.

If the idea of easily disposing of your kitchen waste – domestic or commercial –  interests you then call Kevin on o83 686 4471 for more information and a costing for your application.  You may be surprised at how little it costs and you may even end up saving a lot of money in the process.

Composting – Complete Details

There is an alternative — composting. It’s a good idea whose time has come again. Now more than ever it makes sense to compost all of your family’s food waste, plus paper and any other organic carbon-based waste you can. By composting your household trash, you are not only reducing strain on already overtaxed landfills, but you are also providing yourself with a source of fertilizer for your garden. With your own compost on-site, you no longer have to go to the store to get fertilizer.

If you are not a gardener, you can still make your own compost — you can give it away to family or friends who are gardeners. you can sell it or you can practice random acts of kindness by spreading it on select neighborhood parkways or secluded park corners.

Making quality compost is not difficult. You just need a place to put your compostable matter be it a separate corner of your yard that you designate as your compost heap, or one of the many commercially available compost bins. Compost heaps must be turned and aerated every couple of weeks, and you should follow manufacturer directions for working with a compost bin.

Be forewarned: different compost bins can handle different materials, and most composting systems cannot handle meat, bone or excrement. There are two big problems with composting meat 1) It takes longer to break down than most vegetable matter and 2) Meat attracts scavengers like raccoons an opossum that can spread your compost all over the neighborhood. Compost tumblers are a way to solve both these issues by making it easy to frequently aerate your compost and by being more secure against roaming critters.

Another alternative appropriate for meat and other food waste, the “Green Cone” system, is secure and includes packet of composting enzyme that accelerates the composting process. The Green Cone does not, however, produce compost to be redistributed elsewhere. Instead, it breaks down the contents and lets the nutrients seep into the surrounding earth for a radius of about fifteen feet. suitable placement for a Green Cone would probably be the middle of a vegetable garden. The Green Cone is also capable of handling small amounts of animal excrement.

If you are interested recycling more significant amounts of manure, I would suggest you look up the “Humanure Handbook”. It’s about composting human excrement to reduce stress on sewage treatment plants and the special challenges associated with the process. Pet waste will usually go to a landfill, so following the principles in the handbook to handle pet waste would relieve even more stress on landfills.

Composting excrement is not for everyone, but it is worth considering.

How does composting help save the world? Remember that the less rubbish needs to be taken away in garbage trucks, the less gasoline they use and the less material is sent to the landfill. This is all good.

What can you compost? Vegetable and fruit peels, apple cores, small rodent and rabbit bedding, coffee grounds, tea bags, shredded paper, newspaper and cardboard, and egg shells all work. To make good compost, you generally need a mix of 3:1 paper/cardboard to vegetable waste.

Many localities now sell compost bins and some will even subsidize the cost for homeowners — people need only ask at their local township or village offices.

If your municipality does not offer compost bins, there are many how-to sites on the Internet with details on how to build your own compost bin. All you typically need is some wood, chicken wire, and a 4×4 foot carpet remnant to cover your compost pile and retain heat.

If building your own compost bin is too much work, you can buy one, whether standalone or tumbler, from your local home and garden shop or on the Internet.

Put your waste in, rotate as necessary to aerate, and in 6 to 18 months waste that was destined for the landfill will have been changed into one of the most valuable resources for rejuvenating the earth: rich black compost. Composting is the answer to a lot of problems This and other unique content ” articles are available with free reprint rights.

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