Much of the solid waste that ends up in landfills could be avoided with household composting. Composting sounds like a daunting task, but it can be as simple as throwing food scraps in a pail.

Composting requires some sort of container to act as your composting bin. You can purchase one, build one, use a pail, or if you have room in your garden simply use a small patch of your garden as a compost heap. A good compost bin will contain ample moisture to allow bacteria to break down the material into rich soil.

There are two types of items that make up a compost pile and should be added in different amounts to balance your compost - green items that are nitrogen-rich, and brown items that are carbon-rich.

Green items include:

• Herbivore animal manure
• Rinds, peels, and cores
• Green leaves and grass clippings
• Coffee grounds and filters
• Houseplants and vegetable peels and leaves
• Newspaper Shreds
• Hair and fur
• Tea bags

Brown items include:

• Shredded cardboard rolls
• Shredded clean paper
• Dry leaves, straw, or pine needles
• Cotton rags
• Dryer and vacuum lint
• Nut shells, sawdust, and wood chips
• Wool rags
• Vegetable stalks(seeds should only enter hot piles)

Things that should not be added to piles:

• Anything with chemicals in it
• Bird, cat, dog, or human feces
• Cat litter, bones, or coal-based ash
• Dairy products
• Colored paper
• Greasy materials like oil, salad dressings, or butter
• Treated wood

There are two methods for composting - hot piles and cold piles. A cold pile takes longer to compost and requires less work. In this method you simply add items from your kitchen to the bin. These piles are seldom mixed or rotated and since they are oxygen-deprived, tend to become odorous if there is a lack of brown materials.

Hot piles require a little more work but also speed up the process of decomposition. Hot piles have the right amount of oxygen, moisture, carbon, and nitrogen. You can feel the heat emanating from a hot pile which ranges in temperatures from 115 to 130 degrees F. You need to turn the pile frequently and maintain the proper amount of moisture.

To make it easier to maintain your compost pile, chop and/or shred all materials into smaller pieces to speed up the composting process.

Keep the pile as moist as a damp sponge and layer green and brown items to allow for proper ventilation. Some bins are rounded to allow for easier mixing. When the materials all are a dark brown and the pile has cooled the compost is ready.

The ratios for brown to green items range from 25:1 down to 3:1. It is really an art to figure out the right mixture for your bin and conditions. Start on the conservative side and add more brown items than green and you can slowly add more green items until you reach the proper mixture.

Composting is easy and will reduce many pounds of material from landfills as well as provide you with a great natural fertilizer.