We wanted to get this blog out well before our readers started asking the question: can you compost your Thanksgiving leftovers? We all know there will be some—this is the biggest day of the year for cooking at home and one of the biggest days for food consumption. While we hope you’ll also freeze and reuse leftovers and scraps, some of it will likely need to be discarded as well. So can you compost the remains of your Thanksgiving dinner? The answer’s a little complex on the surface, but if we remember and follow the basic rules for successful composting it’ll be all right. Let’s dig in and look for an answer to this festive question!
Let’s start with the big item first: you can’t compost the leftovers or remains of your Thanksgiving turkey, ham, or other meat dish. Per the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) meat, fish, and bones are tops on the list of things to avoid adding to your compost heap or composter system. There are two central reasons for this: the conditions in most backyard composting systems aren’t quite right to fully compost these items. Adding animal-based foods to your composter can also attract unwanted garden guests like rats, mice, and larger scavengers, leading to situations that are difficult to remedy later on. So meat, fish, dairy as well as fats, oils, and grease are all off the list of things to try and compost. Small amounts won’t cause any harm, but avoid adding them in any noticeable quantity.
Plant-based kitchen scraps are all prime compostable items, adding an array of nutrients to your compost to fuel your garden later on. These include peels, pits, end cuttings, or any other part of the veggie that you’re removing and discarding. To save yourself time and a bit of frustration, consider having a separate bucket or bag for these compostables so they can go directly to the heap without needing further sorting. This is the kind of life hack that saves a lot of time during a busy holiday, and we hope it helps you out.
While whole eggs or egg whites and yolks are treated like animal parts and are not recommended for the compost heap, egg shells are safe to compost and also genuinely beneficial to the future soil. They add a great deal of calcium—that’s what they’re mostly made of—which is one of the nutrients most vital for plant growth. Egg shells are safe to compost as they are, with no further washing or processing necessary. You can add them directly to your veggie scraps bin or bucket and send them on their way!
Leftover prepared foods can be composted if they fit the criteria outlined above—no meat, fish, or dairy in any noticeable quantity, no fats, oils, or butter in any noticeable quantity, and veggies only. If a little bit of something else gets into your heap with the leftover green beans, it’ll likely be OK. We do recommend finding something else to do with the broccoli and cheese, however.
We learn something new with every blog we write, and this one is no exception. Thanksgiving is a time of celebration, and celebrations generally involved baked goods galore—bread, biscuits, cookies, cakes, and pies. So can you compost baked goods? We didn’t know, so we asked a few experts and the answer is more complex than we realized. Low-fat, low-sugar baked goods like bread, crackers, and pasta are probably OK for your compost heap in limited quantities—just shred or tear them up into small pieces so the break down quickly and don’t create damp mold. Items rich in sugar, butter, or other fats bring those items with them to your compost heap, where they don’t do well for reasons we’ve already discussed. This, incidentally, includes chocolate—but there are probably very few people with a “leftover chocolate” problem!
Composting is a great way to create natural fertilizer for your soil. At this time of the year, it also helps reduce food waste. This is important, as food waste contributes to a host of environmental problems on a global scale. While we’re celebrating Thanksgiving, let’s be grateful for the bountiful Earth that we all share and if we can take these steps to help support it.
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