By Tracy Hughes OBSERVER STAFF

Since the arrival of two new additions to our family, our household has noticed a significant increase in garbage output.

Where we usually used to keep our garbage to one can per week, now it has turned into two or more. Feeling somewhat unhappy with this, I saw the perfect thing to assuage my landfill guilt in the form of a Columbia Shuswap Regional District-sponsored composting program, where I could buy a composter at cost (For $40 rather than the $75 I had seen at some stores) and actually get some training on how to use it properly.

So on a cold, drizzly day, I plunked down my cheque for four domed pieces of black plastic — which is also eventually recyclable, although one woman noted she has had a similar product at her home for 20 years.

Carmen Fennell, the CSRD’s waste reduction facilitator, said this program was set up with the idea of making a real impact on waste reduction.

“When we had subsidized composters, we found people were picking them up and they were becoming great Christmas presents for people in Alberta,” she smiled. “As well, we weren’t really sure if people were using them or using them and then giving up.”

Fennell explained that the CSRD decided to make a bulk purchase of the composters and then sell them at-cost, on the condition that people attend a compost education session.

“We want to get people who are interested enough to buy one and to empower people to use it effectively.”

Composting is more than just throwing in some tea bags and veggie peelings. The twenty-or-so people who attended one of the sessions were enlightened on the best way to create healthy compost to enrich our lawns and gardens and cut our waste at the same time.

Over 30 per cent of all material entering CSRD landfills is organic, so mass composting could make a major impact.

Since composting is recycling organic matter, it is an organic process and requires a bunch of elements to work effectively — water, oxygen, heat and bugs in a healthy mix.

I learned an optimum water balance for your compost is when it feels like that of a wrung-out sponge.

To allow for oxygen to break down the material, you should “stir” your compost, which had Halloween visions of me out there bending over the black plastic tub with an ancient stick — but isn’t’ really the best way to mix your compost.

“Every two weeks, give it a stir, not a complete turn-over,” said Fennel. “It’s more like fluffing grains of rice.”

A terrific idea to minimize odours and mess, was to freeze your compost before adding it to the mix. I was delighted to discover another use for this story — as fodder for compost.

The Observer is printed with soy-based, non-toxic ink, and as such is perfectly safe to compost. In fact, Fennell recommended using balled-up newspaper to line the bottom of your composter and to also provide dry, organic matter. For while I already recycle my papers, I like the idea that my words may be worm food. Another great tip was to line your inside kitchen compost bucket with newspaper to minimize mess when you dump it into the outdoor composter.

Don’t drink it yourself, but another suggestion was to make “compost tea” which is where you mix some of your compost with water and use it to water your plants with extra nutrients.

The upshot is that with some effort, I should have usable compost in about six months to enrich my property— and hopefully fewer bags at my curbside.