Want to help your customers cut down on landfill waste? Teach them the benefits of composting

While composting isn't the sexiest part of landscaping, there are definite economic and environmental advantages to doing it, said Texas AgriLife Extension Service and other experts.

"Making your own backyard compost bin or using commercially produced compost reduces landfill use and waste transportation costs," said David Rodriguez, AgriLife Extension agent for horticulture in Bexar County. "It also helps preserve soil moisture, which is especially important during a drought, along with helping prevent soil erosion."

According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state's residents use an estimated 15 million cubic yards in landfill space and pay about $150 million in landfill costs each year. The commission also estimates that more than 5 million tons of yard trimmings and other organic materials are tossed into the state's landfills annually.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than one-quarter of the nation's municipal waste is organic material that could be used for composting.

Composting provides environmental benefits across the board relating to air, water and soil quality, said Mike Lindner, team leader for pollution prevention and education for the environmental quality commission.

"Healthy soil is more likely to support plant life and that means less need for fertilizer, herbicides or pesticides that may run off into the water table," Lindner said. "And recycling organic material instead of throwing it out means fewer trips to the landfill by garbage trucks, saving gas and creating less pollution."

"Green" and "brown" organic waste materials, including grass clippings, leaves, twigs, branches, vegetable and fruit scraps, even coffee grounds, can be used to make compost, Rodriguez said.

"It's pretty easy to start a compost pile in your backyard," he said. "All you really need is the raw material and a shovel or pitchfork, garden hose and a compost bin, he said. "The bin holding the composting material can be wire or plastic, or a you can just spread out sheet of burlap or a tarp and start a compost pile on that."

Rodriguez is such a proponent of composting that recently he held the first statewide Master Gardener "specialist" training on this subject in San Antonio.

"Master Gardeners belong to volunteer horticulture programs throughout the state administered by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service office in their respective counties," he explained.

Rodriguez said the three-day training was attended by 23 Texas Master Gardeners representing Bexar, Blanco, Collin, Gillespie, Guadalupe, Hayes, Hidalgo, Kerr, Liberty, Parker, Tarrant, Taylor and Travis counties. Along with receiving instruction on topics including composting basics, building a composting bin, soil biology, vermiculture (composting using worms) and biosolids, the group took a tour of the New Earth composting facility in eastern Bexar County, one of the largest single-site composting facilities in the U.S.

"This training gave us the expertise to go back into our respective counties and communities to educate people on the use of composting and making a backyard compost bin or pile, or at least for people to buy compost for landscape nutrition, water conservation and soil preservation," said Mary Hoffer, a six-year Master Gardener from Collin County who took the training.

"We recycle for beneficial reuse more than 1million pounds of organic material every day," said Clayton Leonard, president of New Earth Inc., which also has a facility in the Houston area. "Adding organic matter to soil also helps with plant disease suppression in addition to providing plant, flower and shrub nutrition."

Leonard said container growers have told him they benefit from adding compost to their regular potting soils and that homeowners also benefit from using it as a top-dressing for grass or as a supplement to flower and shrub bedding.