How to Get the Most out of Lakeshore Recycling's Curbside Compost Bins
Deerfield’s curbside commercial compost service makes composting your food easy to do. That smaller blue bin that sits next to your trash and recycling bins is not just for yard waste. LRS now accepts kitchen compost as well. Most Deerfield residents haven’t caught on to how simple yet effective home composting can be.
This is what you do:
- Collect food and other organic material in a compostable bag and put it in your kitchen compost bin (don’t know what you can compost? Check out SWALCO’s compost guide for Lake County or just use LRS’ quick guide below).
- If you’d like, you can pick up a free countertop bin from Village Hall or you can buy your own
- Compostable bags that fit the bin are included in the starter pack and can be purchased at the local Whole Foods and various online retailers when refills are needed.
- Take your compost out to your cart and to the curb each week for your regular trash pick up
When LRS picks up your compost each week, it is taken to their Northbrook facility where they remove any contaminates and then Midwest Organics Recycling buys the material. They turn it into a variety of compost materials which customers use to improve the quality of their soil! How cool is that?! Now your food and yard waste doesn’t harm the earth, it helps it
Compost your food and yard waste … and save the earth!
Composting is one of the most powerful actions individuals can take to reduce trash in landfills, build healthy soil and reduce methane gas emissions – the rare win-win-win!
The EPA estimates that in the U.S. in 2019, 66.2 million tons of food was wasted in the retail, service and residential sectors. In the US food makes up 24% of the material sent to landfills and only about 5% of this wasted food was composted. When you include other organic material such as yard trimmings, wood, paper and cardboard this organic material comprises 51% of solid waste in landfills!
As you may know, when this organic material is buried in landfills, without oxygen, anaerobic conditions are present and the bacteria that breaks it down creates methane gas which is a powerful greenhouse gas. Here are some methane gas facts from the EPA:
• Municipal landfills are the 3rd largest source of human-related methane emissions in the US and accounted for about 14% of emissions in 2022.
• Wasted food is responsible for 58% of landfill methane emissions.
• Methane is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.
Because of these facts, reducing methane emissions is a key component to mitigating climate change.
It’s easy to feel discouraged and helpless when it comes to mitigating climate change. The antidote to these feelings is ACTION. Deerfield’s curbside commercial compost service makes composting your food and yard waste easy to do.
