Compost is boss

Room 4 at Wainui Beach School.

by Kya Solomon

I hope after you read this, you will start composting and help the environment.

What is compost?

Compost is lots of food scraps put into some big bins. Compost creates nice moist soil that can help to feed plants. Plants then make food which feed us. Compost is a very big part of the environment.

Green and brown layer

When you put your compost into the bins, you need to have a brown layer and a green layer. The green layer includes sticks, grass clippings, fresh manure, vegetable peelings coffee grounds, seaweed, plants and plant cuttings.

The brown layer includes leaves, straw, paper and cardboard, egg shells, tea bags, sawdust and wood ashes.

Where to keep your bins?

It is good to keep compost bins in a nice sunny area. Putting your compost bins somewhere between your garden and backdoor is a good idea. Put your food scraps in a bucket in your house and then take them to your big bin outdoors.

It is good to have a bin that has holes so that the compost can breath. This helps the composting process.

Compost Monitors

Wainui Beach School is an enviro school. We have monitors who distribute green compost buckets around all the classrooms for children’s food scraps. The monitors then collect the buckets after lunch to tip the scraps into our big compost bins.

by Daniel Ryan

Have you ever thrown your apple core in the rubbish bin? If you have, why? If you want to know why then read on. Then you will know.

What is Compost?

Compost is a bin or container that you put your food scraps, paper, cardboard, dry leaves, hay/grass and all greenery/brownery matter. Then over time it turns into soil which makes compost.

How do you compost?

Composting is very, very simple. All you need to do is put your food scraps such as apple cores, banana peels, and much, much more into a compost bin. You can also add dry grass and paper. You need to layer your compost with green and brown layers.

Where do I keep my compost?

You can keep your compost in the compost bin until it turns into soil. Then you put it in the garden around your plants.

Why is it important to compost?

If we don’t compost, all we do is just throw our food scraps away. They go to the landfill and you don’t want that because this makes a gas called methane which contributes to global warming. Methane is created when the food scraps sit on top of a pile of rubbish for ages.

Then there’s leachate which is made by the water in food scraps. It leaks into our waters and rivers. So that’s why its very, very, very important to compost!

It sure feels good to compost! It’s the Boss. Have fun!

by Charlie Keepa

Have you ever composted? If you haven’t, keep reading and you’ll find out everything there is to know!

Wainui Beach school’s experience!

Room 4 from Wainui Beach School started to compost because we are an Enviro school. We are a Silver Enviro School but now we are striving for gold. So our class decided we should be in charge of the compost.

What is Compost?

Compost is a pile of green organic matter such as food scraps, garden waste or manure, mixed with brown organic matter such as, leaves, straw or woodchips.

Over time the compost decomposes into a rich soil. Billions of tiny creatures help with this break down such as fungus, worms and bacteria.

Why Should we Compost?

The first reason is to keep useable scraps away from landfills. When you throw your food scraps into the garbage, they go into the landfill. All the water from the food leaks out and combines with the other items in the landfill, which makes a toxic sludge called leachate. This leaks into the water and affects the animals that live there and also the water we use for drinking and swimming etc.

The second reason is when food scraps are in the landfill they produce a gas called methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Hotter temperatures can cause ice caps to melt, the sea level to rise and animals to lose their homes.

How to compost

Firstly you will need a compost bin which you can buy for about $44. Put it in a sunny spot and make sure it gets rain.

It’s important to have a mixture of both green and brown organic matter. If you have too much green, your compost will get all slimy and wet. If you have too much brown your compost goes all dry.

You want nice soil. After a long time, check on your compost. When it’s turned into soil that’s when you can transfer it from the compost bin to the garden.

Garbage vs compost

For a normal person, 52 percent of your garbage is usable — 21 percent is food scraps; 15 percent is paper and cardboard; 8 percent is grass clippings; 8 percent is wood waste, and the rest is rubbish.

Even if you don’t use your garbage for composting, it could be used for worm farming or fed to pigs. Just make sure you are not throwing useable scraps like paper, grass clippings and wood waste into the garbage bin. A good goal is try to put your rubbish out every two to three weeks rather than every week.