Try our RECYCLE Test!

Challenge #2 - Recycle any plant matter from gardening or food preparation

Chooks

The best option for recycling plant matter from gardening or food preparation is to give it to your chooks. They will delight in such treats and produce delicious. The best option for recycling plant matter from gardening or food preparation is to give it to your chooks. They will delight in such treats and produce delicious eggs as well. If you have a garden you can dig deep holes (about 30cm deep) in your vegetable patch or other garden bed and place plant matter in the hole, including food scraps. Cover with soil and leave to break down and add nutrients to the soil. s eggs as well. If you have a garden you can dig deep holes (about 30cm deep) in your vegetable patch or other garden bed and place plant matter in the hole, including food scraps. Cover with soil and leave to break down and add nutrients to the soil.

Compost

You can opt for a more traditional compost heap. When making compost it is a good idea to have a balance between moist material of plant origin that contains a lot of nutrients and drier material that can bulk out the compost and ensure that air gets into it to prevent anaerobic decomposition.  However, brown matter like paper and cardboard needs to have a little moisture otherwise it will not breakdown. If your compost steams and feels warm it is a good time to turn it over with a fork to let the air into the middle.

Worm farm

If you live in an apartment, a worm farm is compact and can fit on a balcony.  The special compost worms will happily munch through household scraps and turn them into fine compost and a liquid fertiliser. Worms like much the same diet as the compost heap but don’t add too much brown matter.

Bokashi bin

You can also have a Bokashi bin (bought, or home-made) on your kitchen counter.  Microbes packaged in bran, are added to all sorts of food scraps to cause them to ferment. Add some shredded paper to the bottom of the bin to soak up any juice. Add some organic absorbent material, such as used paper towel to the food scraps so they are not too wet.