Composting Cooked Food Waste

The benefits of using cooked food as compost material include reduction of overall waste and an increase in both available raw material and finished fertilizer.

Composting cooked food waste. Composting cooked vegetables is slightly more complicated than composting yard waste like grass and leaves but if managed properly this type of food waste can indeed contribute to a rich soil. If scavengers are a problem use a critter proof enclosed system such as a. Composting bins are located in every all you care to eat dining rooms on campus managed by cornell dining and many other dining facilities on campus. All of cornell dining s pre consumer food waste is collected in every dining unit and composted by one of the cornell university agricultural experiment station cuaes farms farm services.

The one thing that you need to be aware of is cooked meat. Read our guide on how to compost at home and the benefits of two simple systems. Cover cooked foods with a few shovelfuls of dirt leaves or sawdust in your compost pile to keep smells down and discourage pests. But even the most ardent of zero wasters end up with it on occasions so being able to compost cooked food is a number one weapon in avoiding landfill.

The compost bin is the best place for leftover food mainly because when you throw it in with the rest of the composting waste it s out of sight and out of mind. Composting is an easy way to reduce food waste that would go to landfill. Bokashi composting cooked food waste for your garden 5 november 2010 written by jeremy dore of course it s possible to feed your plants with commercially produced compost and fertilizers but home composting is so easy cheap and effective that it makes sense to recycle as much as possible back into the soil. Use a thermometer to make sure your pile reaches at least 140 160 f for a week or more.

If you want to deal with both cooked and raw food waste you have three options a bokashi bin system a green johanna or a wormery. Learn more about this program. Turn your compost regularly to keep the temperature up. Home composting has always been a good way of recycling uncooked kitchen waste such as vegetable peelings tea bags and coffee grounds but there is a problem dealing with meat and fish dairy products and leftover cooked food.

In the ideal world we wouldn t have any food waste at all.