Grant Berman started setting up compost bins in Newton during his sophomore year in high school. Now in its fourth year of business, Grant has expanded Dirty Boys Composting to other towns, and has a blast teaching people about best backyard composting practices, while improving the environment and spending time outdoors. Grant, now a student at Middlebury College, has installed and maintains over 250 backyard compost piles, which are diverting 1000's of pounds of compostable trash per year from the waste stream. Grant thinks this is only the beginning of what’s possible, and is continuing to expand Dirty Boys Composting throughout Massachusetts. Contact Dirty Boys Composting to see whether they service your town!
Dirty Boys Composting will quickly get your household compost pile up and running, so you can immediately be part of the movement to reduce waste and improve our environment.
Composting is the planned, accelerated decomposition of kitchen and yard wastes. Composting creates "black gold," compost, a rich, organic matter which can improve the health and productivity of garden soil.
Composting is a simple way to drastically reduce your household’s garbage output. The average Newton household produces 650 lbs of food and yard waste every year. 75% of this garbage is buried in our landfills, and, there, produces toxic by-products which contaminate the earth. Home-based composting removes food and yard waste from our dumps, and turns it into top grade fertilizer which beautifies our yards and helps preserve the earth.
A pile that is carefully managed for all the right conditions (such as moisture, the optimal mix of carbon and nitrogen), and turned every week or every other week, can compost in one to two months. Compost piles that are not maintained will take longer to break down.
Once your "black gold" is ready, it can be used as a fertilizer before planting, to add nutrients into your garden beds. Or,use compost as a mulch around existing plants, trees and shrubs. By steeping compost in water, you can also make a "tea" for spraying on house and garden plants.
When compost piles are properly balanced, they should not smell. Ideally, compost piles should have a carbon: nitrogen ratio of 20:1 - 40:1, the piles should be kept damp but not over soaked, and kept oxygenated.
Care must be used in building and maintaining compost piles to keep them pest free. It is important to keep meat, bones, fish, fat, poultry, and dairy out of the compost pile because they attract animals. Fresh food scraps should be buried in the "hot" center of the compost pile, and covered, where they will quickly degrade. Finally, compost piles should be kept in a sturdy container. Follow these guidelines, and your compost pile will be pest free.
Even if your pile freezes completely, it’s still possible to continue composting in the winter. It is helpful to chop your kitchen scraps into very small pieces to speed up the process, since the bacteria in your compost don’t work as quickly in the cold weather.
Many items that would normally go into the trash or down the disposal can actually be composted. Download a list of what to compost here
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