The importance of composting. What it is and how you can start.

Helping to eliminate food waste is simple and effective. You can make a difference today and can impact the world tomorrow.

About one third of all food produced worldwide is either lost or wasted. It makes up about 30% of what is “thrown away.” Waste scraps of food are sent to landfills where they will rot and produce methane gas and is more potent than carbon dioxide. Composting is one way to solve this problem and is natures way of recycling. And, it’s easier than you think.

DIY compost bins or piles or compost services can be a surprisingly inexpensive and a fun family, neighborhood, student or school project.

From the Experts

Helping Ninjas sat down with three composting service company owners, all helping to reduce food waste and passionate about what they do.

Here is what they had to say about the importance of composting and how each of their companies can help!

Earth Mama Compost

Each week, this woman-owned, compost-hauler business in the Midwest, collects two tons of food waste. Approximately 75% comes from residents.

Heather Maybury owner of Earth Mama Compost, wants citizens to have an option and is empowering community members to make a change, “If we choose to discard of food waste into the landfills, it will remain for decades emitting carbon dioxide and methane gas. Composting food waste can reduce the burden on our landfills up to 20%.”

According to an EPA report in 2014, 56 % of food waste in the U.S. was residential.

“When you compost, it ensures the plants grow at an optimal rate, plants will not get as large as they would with use of synthetics fertilizer, and that’s actually a good thing. Fast growth creates a weak cell structure in plants and makes them more supple to disease. Compost creates vibrant, stronger, more nutrient rich plants.”

Heather Maybury, Owner, Earth Mama

When visiting Colorado, Heather saw a similar company operating and thought that Indiana needed one too. She started a former composting company in 2009: Curbside Compostables, before purchasing Earth Mama in 2012.

“After doing the research, then finding out food waste doesn’t breakdown in the landfill and adds to the pollution in the atmosphere—I knew I had to do something.”

To date, Earth Mama Compost has rescued over 93,000 lbs. of food waste!

Earth Mama Compost services Boone County, Marion County, Carmel in Hamilton County, and on the Southside of Indianapolis in Greenwood.

100% the compostable waste goes to GreenCycle.

For more information about the company, price for services, and general composting tips: Earth Mama Compost or contact: [email protected]

Heather at Earth Mama is a Helping Ninja. “All hands up” for efforts to help lead the way and pave a path to a greener future in the state of Indiana. 🙌🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏼🙌🏽

Earth Mama and Helping Ninjas collaborate on student-led composting projects.

Examples: School compost pilots and program, youth and community education and outreach, opportunities for youth and families to compost.

If you are interested in starting to compost, whether it be at home, in your neighborhood, at school or with your friends contact: [email protected].

RE317

“We have the power to do something over nothing—what we do matters. Many things in life are circular, by teaching our children to be good stewards of the earth it will last a lifetime.”

Nicole Pasquerelli, Owner RE317

RE317 launched in September of 2020 and so far has saved 3,500 pounds of pumpkins, composted over 1000 lbs of food waste — this is equivalent to saving 212 gallons of gas for the average car to drive 5,000 miles.

Currently RE317 services Hamilton County Indiana and other areas by request. Visit RE317.com for more information about current and future services, or contact: [email protected]

Nicole and her family plants trees on the one year anniversary of the person who signed up for services. The service member will also receive an impact report twice a year, as well as getting a free 5-gallon bin of finished compost in the spring.

Nicole has big dreams for the company. She wants to be able to work alongside other local small businesses, bring employment opportunities to military veterans, enhance their green service by offering more products for the community – and hopes to inspire and teach children about composting along the way.

🙌🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏼🙌🏽 All hands up for RE317! Nicole and her family are Helping Ninjas! Helping Ninjas applauds their efforts and extends gratitude for efforts to help our planet!

Green With Indy

Green With Indy is a year-round compost pickup service dedicated to residential areas and commercial businesses in Indianapolis and surrounding areas, including some of Indy’s favorite foodie restaurants.

Founded and designed by the Herron School of Art + Design students in 2017 all whom shared a vision to be good stewards of the Earth and enrich the communities of Indianapolis with an easy disposal of their food waste. 

The students work with the local communities of Indianapolis by offering their services to both residential and commercial areas of business. Green With Indy services events and special occasions. All of the compost picked up goes straight to GreenCycle of Indiana, where it is then turned into a rich soil to utilize in growing local and wholesome garden table vegetables.

“How does composting save the soil? We can prevent leachate from poisoning our soil by composting the biodegradable materials. Composting is an acceleration of the same process nature uses to decompose organic materials into a rich material, known as compost. By composting, you are returning nutrients back into the soil in order for the cycle of life to continue.”

Green With Indy

🙌🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏼🙌🏽 A Helping Ninja all hands up for the students and partners of Green With Indy! Check our their helpful composting guide and to learn more: Green With Indy, or contact: [email protected]

Submitted By:

Briar Woods, Volunteer Writer, they/them/theirs

Article Edited and Posted by Helping Ninjas™

Kids Compost

Helping Ninjas believes everyone should have the means to compost their food waste and help to eliminate food waste. Helping Ninjas Kids Compost brings kids and families together, learning how to compost and helping the planet.

Helping Ninjas is committed to bringing the awareness to the importance of composting and education to youth around the world and opportunities to compost firsthand. Providing both opportunities for children to learn about compost and opportunities to experience it and connect with local compost companies and even start a neighborhood compost of their own or at school, visit KidsCompost.com.

Get involved with your community and reduce food waste and create sustainable futures for generations to come — sign up today for Kids Compost and begin your journey to living sustainably!

Visit KidsCompost.com to learn more information about composting and home and DIY projects.

© All rights reserved. 2020. Helping Ninjas™

By Heping Ninja Kate Riegel, Age 18, San Diego, California

It’s spooky season!

Halloween is a night of fun, creativity, and treats for millions of people. This holiday can be scary not only for the haunted houses but also for the pollution it can create.

However, with a few tips, we can keep all the fun of our beloved holiday and cut a lot of the waste!

Candy

A lot of people’s favorite part of Halloween is all the candy! Eager tricker-treaters run from door to door collecting sweet treats and Halloween party hosts serve large amounts of candy. Most of this candy is individually wrapped in plastic. Unfortunately for us and our planet, it’s nearly impossible to recycle candy wrappers, until recently.

Helping Ninjas is supporting efforts of Rubicon’s Trick or Trash campaign this October to recycle candy wrappers in pre-paid, custom recycling boxes!

Rubicon is helping to make Halloween sweet and sustainable.

It is the second year for Helping Ninja’s participate in the Trick Or Treat campaign and a more reasonable option consumers now have to recycle candy wrappers! Click here to learn how you to can participate!

Candy wrappers along with other snack wrappers are not recyclable curbside. So, where do they go? You guessed it. Landfills.

It is estimated that approximately 600 million candy wrappers hit the landfills each year.

Where they will stay for hundreds, and maybe thousands of years! Think of all the candy wrappers in landfills today! Now that’s scary!

Just talking about the subject of plastic “waste” on Halloween can help, awareness is key. You can create Trick Or Trash Art to inspire others to learn how to help!

Rubicon & National Wildlife Federation‘s’ have created a curriculum for K-12 students at TrickOrTrash.com to help youth learn about the importance of recycling and reducing waste.

Another way to reduce waste on Halloween is to choose candy that is packaged in paper boxes such as Nerds, Milk Duds, Dots, and Junior Mints.

If you’re hosting a Halloween party or even just figuring out what to eat on Halloween, there is so much potential to reduce waste!

Instead of offering individually wrapped candies, cook and serve Halloween treats such as candied popcorn, candied apples, cheesy pumpkin puffs, tangerine pumpkins, roasted pumpkin seeds, stuffed mushroom eyeballs, sausage mummies, pumpkin soup, or many other recipes.

As much as possible, get the ingredients for the recipes package-free. With candy, this is nearly impossible but with other foods, it is much more feasible, so consider opting for making your own party snacks verses pre-packaged treats.

Costume

Thousands of Halloween costumes are bought every year and many of them are only worn once. This is a significant source of textile waste. Instead of purchasing a new costume every year, give a second life to a costume by borrowing from friends and family and thrifting costumes. It is also worthwhile to see if you own anything already that could go with your costume- you might be pleasantly surprised!

After Halloween, if you outgrow your Halloween costume, see if you can give it to a younger family member or friend before donating it. That will ensure that the costume does have a second life whereas in a thrift shop, it could be sent to the landfill or to another country if not sold. If you are older and don’t outgrow your costumes anymore, keep them so that you can use them for other costume parties and mix-and-match them with other pieces to create a whole new costume!

Pumpkins

Pumpkins are a wonderful part of Halloween. From picking them out at a pumpkin patch, to carving them, to decorating our homes with them, pumpkins bring out the Halloween spirit. But what happens to them once the season is over? Many people put them in the trash without a second thought and this harms the environment in a couple ways.

This leads us to our next category in making this holiday eco-friendly: What to do about pumpkins?

First, pumpkins that have the potential to be used as food or compost are sent to the landfill, where they take up space instead of serving another purpose. Second, when organic materials like pumpkins go to the landfill, they are forced to decompose without oxygen. This process produces methane, a greenhouse gas twenty-one times more potent than carbon dioxide, and thus accelerates climate change. Instead of sending our pumpkins to the landfill, we can eat and compost them.

Helping Ninjas’ Founder Leo Berry discusses this on a local TV Station in Indianapolis, Indiana.

There are many recipes for roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin soup, pumpkin muffins, and pumpkin pie. Use your pumpkins from Halloween to create these tasty treats!

For parts of the pumpkin that you don’t eat, put them in your compost bin, give them to a neighbor who composts, or drop them off at a community compost drop-off or animal sanctuary.

I sincerely hope that you learned something from these tips and that you will have a safe and fun, eco-friendly Halloween!

BOO! 👻

Kate

Follow Kate on IG @pollution_solution

Links to learn more!

Compost your Pumpkins

By Leo Berry

Life could not exist on Earth without trees because they produce most of the oxygen that humans and wildlife breathe.

Did you know that by being in nature your seretonin levels can increase? Just by being in nature, your body responds and it makes you happy! Trees can also heal you, by reducing stress and increasing immunity.

Trees can reduce violence too. Studies have shown that neighborhoods with more trees tend to have less violent occurrences vs neighborhoods without trees.

There are many benefits from trees.

One acre of trees annually consumes the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to that produced by driving an average car for 26,000 miles. That same acre of trees also produces enough oxygen for 18 people to breathe for a year.”

A 100-foot tree, 18 inches diameter at its base, produces 6,000 pounds of oxygen.

On average, one tree produces nearly 260 pounds of oxygen each year. Two mature trees can provide enough oxygen for a family of four.

Such as temperatures get reduced by having more trees plus water evaporation from the shade of trees get slowed so it becomes better water for crops. Also, trees reduce pollution by pulling pollutants and carbon out of the air through their trees and storing in the ground.

Other benefits are:

• Trees clean the air
• Combat climate change
• Provide oxygen
• Lowers temperature
• Save energy 
• Save water
• Prevents water pollution
• Prevent soil erosion
• Trees shield UV rays
• Trees provide food
• Trees heal
• Reduce violence
• It marks the season
• Trees create economic opportunities
• Trees are teachers and playmates
• Trees bring ppl together
• They add unity 
• Trees provide a canopy and habitat
• They block things
• Trees provide wood
• Increase property values
• Trees increase business traffic

Did you know that planting trees can help the planet, each other and oneself? Trees are amazing and powerful and The Helping Ninjas want all youth to have the opportunity to learn about the importance of trees, balanced ecosystems and healthy habitats and most importantly, how you can help.

Planting native trees in one way you can help!

Planting native means planting trees and plants and flowers that are native to your region – where you live!

Today, Helping Ninjas are learning about Native Trees in Indiana, where our founder, Leo, and family lives, Carmel, Indiana.

Learn about Indiana Native Trees with these fun Native Tree Flash Cards!

50 Indiana Tree Flash Cards

Twenty-Two Benefits of Trees

Indiana Native Tree List

EVERGREEN:

Eastern Arborvitae, Thuja occidentalisEastern Red Cedar, Juniperus virginianaWhite Cedar, Thuja occidentalisHemlock, Tsuga canadensisWhite Pine, Pinus strobusJack Pine, Pinus banksianaVirginia Pine, Pinus virginiana 

DECIDUOUS

Black Ash, Fraxinus nigraBlue Ash, Fraxinus quadrangulataGreen Ash, Fraxinus pennsylvanicaPumpkin Ash, Fraxinus profundaWhite Ash, Fraxinus americanaBigtooth Aspen, Populus grandidentataAmerican Beech, Fagus grandifoliaGray Birch, Betula populifoliaPaper Birch, Betula papyriferaRiver Birch, Betula nigraYellow Birch, Betula alleghaniensisBlue Beech, Carpinus carolinianaBox Elder, Acer negundoOhio Buckeye, Aesculus glabraYellow Buckeye, Aesculus flavaButternut or White Walnut, Juglans cinereaNorthern Catalpa, Catalpa speciosaBlack Cherry, Prunus serotinaAmerican Chestnut, Castenea dentataKentucky Coffeetree, Gymnocladus dioicusEastern Cottonwood, Populus deltoidesSwamp Cottonwood, Populus heterophyllaPrairie Crabapple, Malus ioensisSweet Crabapple, Malus coronariaDevil’s Walking Stick, Aralia spinosaFlowering Dogwood, Cornus floridaPagoda Dogwood, Cornus alternifoliaAmerican Elm, Ulmus americanaCork Elm, Ulmus thomasii Slippery Elm, Ulmus rubraWinged Elm, Ulmus alataCommon Hackberry, Celtis occidentalisCockspur Hawthorn, Crataegus crus-galliDotted Hawthorn, Crataegus punctataDowny Hawthorn, Crataegus mollisGreen Hawthorn, Crataegus viridisEastern/Canadian Hemlock, Tsuga canadensisBitternut Hickory, Carya cordiformisBlack Hickory, Carya texanaMockernut Hickory, Carya tomentosaPignut Hickory, Carya glabraSand Hickory, Carya pallidaShagbark Hickory, Carya ovataShellbark Hickory, Carya laciniosaHoney Locust, Gleditsia triacanthosAmerican Hop-hornbeam, Ostrya virginianaHoptree, Ptelea trifoliataAmerican Hornbeam, Carpinus carolinianaAmerican Larch, Larix laricinaBlack Locust, Robinia pseudoacaciaWater Locust, Gleditsia aquaticaCucumber Tree (Magnolia), Magnolia acuminataUmbrella Magnolia, Magnolia tripetalaBlack Maple, Acer nigrumRed Maple, Acer rubrumSilver Maple, Acer saccharinumSugar Maple, Acer saccharumShowy Mountain-ash, Sorbus decoraRed Mulberry, Morus rubraBlack Oak, Quercus velutinaBlackjack Oak, Quercus marilandicaBur Oak, Quercus macrocarpaCherrybark Oak, Quercus pagodaChestnut Oak, Quercus montanaChinkapin Oak, Quercus muehlenbergiiNorthern Pin or Hill’s Oak, Quercus ellipsoidalisOvercup Oak, Quercus lyrataPin Oak, Quercus palustrisPost Oak, Quercus stellataRed Oak, Quercus rubraScarlet Oak, Quercus coccineaShingle Oak, Quercus imbricariaShumard Oak, Quercus shumardiiSwamp Chestnut Oak, Quercus michauxiiSwamp White Oak, Quercus bicolorWhite Oak, Quercus albaPawpaw, Asimina trilobaPecan, Carya illinoinensisPersimmon, Diospyros virginianaAmerican Plum, Prunus americanaBalsam Poplar, Populus balsamiferaTulip Poplar, Liriodendron tulipiferaEastern Redbud, Cercis canadensisSassafras, Sassafras albidumAllegheny Serviceberry, Amelanchier laevisDowny Serviceberry, Amelanchier arboreaSourwood, Oxydendrum arboreumSugarberry, Celtis laevigataSweetgum, Liquidambar styracifluaSycamore, Platanus occidentalisTamarack, Larix laricinaBlack Tupelo or Black Gum, Nyssa sylvaticaBlack Walnut, Juglans nigraBlack Willow, Salix nigraPeachleaf Willow, Salix amigdaloidesYellowwood, Cladrastis kentukea 

To see full list of Indiana’s Native Trees, Native Plants, Shrubs and Flowers visit:

https://www.indianawildlife.org/wildlife/native-plants/

Other helpful links: