Ready to have fun while taking care of your kitchen waste? Follow the steps below.
Your time starts now!!
1. Take a large plastic bucket with a lid and drill a few holes on its surface at different levels to let air inside. Also. Punch holes at the bottom.
2. Place and spread crushed brick pieces or soil covering the bottom to make about an inch thick layer.
3. Cover this with about one to two inches thick layer of bagasse (Leftover sugarcane after the juice is extracted, washed and dried) or coconut fibers above this brick layer so as to cover it completely.
4. Collect dry organic matter (dried leaves, sawdust) and spread these on top of the bagasse layer so as to make about an inch thick layer.
5. Collect and spread some cow dung on top of this layer. Cow dung contains many useful bacteria which help in speeding up the process of composting. However, if cow dung is not available, then skip this step.
6. Add about 2 inches thick layer of Bio inoculum or Bioculture on top of this base. This can be procured from the plant nurseries, or you can purchase it online. This is your starting material.
7. Once your bin is ready and you have added all the necessary ingredients as per the given protocol, you are ready to go!
8. Collect your edible kitchen waste (vegetable peels, fruit peels, small amounts of wasted cooked food) in a container and chop these into small pieces. Again, this is not mandatory, but those tiny little bacteria will be more than happy if you ‘feed’ them with small pieces.
9. Put this chopped vegetable/fruit waste in layers alternating wet waste (food scraps, vegetable and fruit peels) with dry waste (straw, sawdust, dried leaves). Sprinkle some water on this and cover the container with a plastic sheet or a plank of wood to help retain moisture and heat.
10. Now, close the lid/cover and let it remain like that for about 21 days. Have patience. Don’t add any more waste at all through this period. Give those bacteria and fungi their own space and time to process your waste till its maturity, though you can open the lid and peep into your compost bin occasionally.
11. Have Greens and Browns: Brown materials are carbon-rich items that provide energy to the microorganisms in the pile and give compost its light, fluffy body. Typical brown items are wood-based or fibrous: dry leaves, branches, stems, sawdust, tree bark, shredded newspaper, corn stalks, wood ash, and pine needles.
12. Green materials are nitrogen-based waste materials. They provide amino acids and proteins needed for the bacteria and fungi to do their job. Manures, food scraps, coffee grounds, green leaves, and grass clippings are excellent nitrogen-rich green materials.
13. A simple rule of thumb is to make sure the compost pile has approximately 2/3rd “brown” materials and 1/3rd “green” materials.
What to expect after “21days” incubation period is over? What to expect? These and many more questions could crop up in your minds. Please wait till my next article. Till then, have a good weekend!
(The author is an environmentalist. Views personal.)
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