Happy (almost) Earth Day! In honor of this one day in April dedicated to remembering and caring for our beautiful planet, here is one of the best ways you can do your part to contribute to sustainability all of the time, and how you can do so with the budget of a broke college student!
I’ve always considered myself to be a fairly sustainable person, recycling everything I could and avoiding excessive plastic water bottle use like the plague. It wasn’t until I began living with my sustainability-junkie, envi-sci major roommate that I realized just how much more I could be doing. Don’t get me wrong- I was pretty intimidated when my new roommate walked in the door with reusable paper towels, reusable plastic bags, and a compost bin the week I began living with her, but her antics have made me a sustainability junkie as well!
Because of these antics, we started composting at our house, which both significantly reduced our trash production and gave us reason to buy more plants! All of these perks and it was still super easy and cheap to do! It’s really just 5 simple steps:
- Get 2 of the same size buckets and matching lids, as well as some kind of wire/tie to hold them together when it rains from Lowe’s, Home Depot, or really any home improvement store.
- Stack them, and make a few holes along the bottom and sides, we used a drill, but you could honestly just stab the bins with a sharp object and get the same results.
- Alternate placing layers of dried leaves and pine needles with potting soil until the bucket is a third of the way full.
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*It’s helpful to have some sort of portable compost bin to keep in your kitchen so you don’t have to bring something outside every time you need to compost it.
- Put the food scraps in the bin on top of the alternating leaves and soil, turn it (mix it around a lil), and spray it with water once a week (make sure it’s not drenched in water though).
- You’ll know your compost is ready when it’s broken-down and earthy, rather than just rotten food scraps. After that just put it on your top soil and enjoy the plant growth!