
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 14, 1994                   TAG: 9407140063
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-5   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Joe Hunnings
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMPOST IS HOT IN GARDENING

One of my favorite T-shirts bears a slogan that says: "Compost - because a rind is a terrible thing to waste!" Of course, this is a takeoff on the slogan, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." And frankly, sometimes I think we've lost our minds when it comes to how we deal with much of our wastes.

Granted, we have improved our individual and community efforts at recycling, but we still throw away a tremendous amount of "waste." Yard wastes - including grass clippings and leaves - make up 10 percent to 20 percent of our waste stream. Throw in kitchen scraps and the average American household is filling landfills with resources that could be recycled as easily as a newspaper or aluminum can. How? Through a simple process that Mother Nature perfected eons ago called composting.

Composting is one of the most natural systems of recycling known. Composting recycles organic solid wastes through natural biological breakdown processes into a natural soil conditioner useful in stabilizing and enriching the soil. Municipal solid waste composting is expected in the future to divert 30 percent to 60 percent of today's garbage from landfills in many communities. In European countries, proven composting technology has been used for many years in recycling solid waste.

We do not have large scale municipal composting facilities (yet) in the New River Valley. That is to your advantage because composting these wastes at home not only has a positive environmental impact on your own landscape, but the major costs of collecting, transporting, processing and marketing by the municipality can be reduced if home composting is encouraged.

If you would like to learn more about how you can compost at home, you're invited to visit the Backyard Composting Demonstration display Saturday at 9:00 a.m., at the rear of the parking lot of the Blacksburg Community Center on Patrick Henry Drive. Several Extension Master Gardeners will be on hand to teach you the do's and don'ts of composting. This display - as well as a companion display at the Virginia Tech Horticulture Garden - provides a self-guided learning opportunity for people interested in composting.

For more information about the composting demonstration or other horticulture topics, contact your local Virginia Cooperative Extension office.

Joe Hunnings is the Virginia Cooperative Extension agent for agriculture in the Montgomery County extension office in Christiansburg. If you have questions, call 382-5790.

by CNB