Every banana peel, coffee filter and wilted lettuce leaf you toss in the trash ends up somewhere — and more often than not, that somewhere is a landfill. But there is a simple, practical alternative that anyone with a small outdoor space can embrace: composting.
Whether you have never thought about composting before or you have been curious about it for years, getting started is more straightforward than you might think. Here is what you need to know about why composting matters, what you need and how to do it right.
Why Composting Matters
At its core, composting is a way to recycle the organic materials most of us routinely throw away. According to the EPA, “Composting is a form of organic recycling. Organics recycling is when facilities collect and process organic materials (that would otherwise be landfilled or incinerated) into new products, such as soil amendments.”
That distinction is important. When food scraps and yard trimmings end up in landfills or combustion facilities, the nutrients and carbon they contain are essentially wasted. The EPA explains it this way: “When we send food and other organic materials to landfills or combustion facilities, we throw away the valuable nutrients and carbon contained in those materials. By composting our food scraps and yard trimmings instead, and using the compost produced, we can return those nutrients and carbon to the soil to improve soil quality, support plant growth and build resilience in our local ecosystems and communities.”
In other words, composting takes what most people consider garbage and transforms it into something genuinely useful — a rich soil amendment that can benefit gardens, yards and local food systems.
Building Community Resilience, One Pile at a Time
The benefits of composting extend well beyond your backyard garden. According to the EPA, compost plays a meaningful role in helping communities adapt to the increasingly unpredictable weather patterns many regions face.
Specifically, the EPA notes that compost “improves a community’s ability to adapt to extreme weather by helping soil absorb water and prevent runoff of pollutants during floods. It also helps soil hold more water for longer, mitigating the effects of drought.”
That dual benefit — managing both too much water and too little — makes compost a surprisingly powerful tool for environmental resilience.
The EPA also states that composting “sequesters carbon in the soil, helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” And on a local level, it “strengthens sustainable, local food production when locally generated food scraps and other organic materials are used to create a valuable soil amendment that supports plant growth.”
For families and neighborhoods looking for tangible ways to make a difference environmentally, composting offers a direct, hands-on option.
Getting Started: Step by Step
Ready to give it a try? The process is simpler than many people expect. Ecocycle, a well-known resource for sustainable living guidance, breaks it down into clear steps.
Step 1: Get a Bin
The first thing you need is a place for your compost to live. According to Ecocycle, you should “obtain a bin or an area outdoors that is approximately one cubic yard (3′ x 3′ x 3′).”
Size matters more than you might realize. As Ecocycle explains, “Size is important for the proper temperature. Piles that are too small cannot hold enough heat for effective microbial activity. Piles that are too large (more than 5 cubic feet) do not allow enough air to reach microbes in the center of the pile.”
So when choosing or building a compost bin, aim for that sweet spot — large enough to generate and hold heat, but compact enough to allow airflow throughout the pile.
Step 2: Know Your Browns and Greens
This is where composting gets hands-on — and where many beginners feel uncertain. The key concept to understand is the relationship between two types of materials, commonly referred to as “browns” and “greens.”
According to Ecocycle, you should “mix two parts ‘brown’ materials (dry leaves, small twigs, straw, etc.) with one part ‘green’ materials (grass clippings, kitchen scraps, etc.). This 2:1 ratio provides the best mix of carbon (browns) to nitrogen (greens).”
That 2:1 ratio — two parts brown to one part green — is the foundation of effective composting. Browns provide carbon, while greens provide nitrogen. Together, they create the conditions microbes need to break organic material down into rich, usable compost.
One thing that trips up newcomers is the terminology itself. Ecocycle offers a helpful clarification: “Note that these terms are not to be taken too literally: Browns can sometimes be green (such as cardboard with a green color printed on it) and greens can be brown (such as coffee grounds)! They refer to the nature of the material more than its color; browns are dry and fibrous, whereas greens are softer and moist.”
Think of it this way: if a material is dry and crunchy, it is probably a brown. If it is moist and soft, it is probably a green.
What Goes in the Bin?
Once you have your bin set up and understand the brown-green ratio, the next question is simple: what exactly should you toss in?
According to Ecocycle, here is what belongs in your backyard compost bin:
Greens:
– Fruit and vegetable scraps
– Coffee grounds
– Fresh grass clippings
– Plant scraps
Browns:
– Dead leaves
– Cardboard (such as pizza boxes)
– Dry grass clippings
– Egg shells
– Shredded newspaper
Many of these items are things most households discard every single day. Those apple cores, carrot peels, spent coffee grounds and old newspapers do not have to end up in the trash. They can instead become a resource — one that feeds your soil and supports the health of your local environment.
Small Effort, Real Impact
Composting does not require expensive equipment, specialized training or hours of labor each week. What it does require is a willingness to rethink what counts as waste.
By diverting food scraps and yard trimmings from the landfill, you are keeping valuable nutrients and carbon in the cycle where they can do the most good — in the soil beneath our feet. As the EPA makes clear, this simple act supports soil quality, plant growth and the resilience of local ecosystems and communities.
A 3-foot-by-3-foot bin, a pile of leaves and your kitchen scraps are all it takes to get started.
