The City of Marlborough is announcing the availability of Home Composters at the Marlborough Department of Public Works. These composters are available through a recycling grant received by the City from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
The composters are available in two styles. To view each type of composter, click this link to the Massachusetts DEP.
EARTH MACHINE NEW AGE COMPOSTER 24
Capacity: 10 Cubic Feet Capacity 24 cubic feet,
Made from recycled plastic Adjustable diameter & capacity
Easy snap together assembly Self-aerating
Durable and lightweight design
The composters are available at the Marlborough Department of Public Works (DPW), 135 Neil St., Marlborough Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM. The purchase cost is $25.00 for Marlborough residents and $43.00 for non-residents. When a home composter is purchased, the City will include one Kitchen Scrap Bucket with each purchase, while supplies last. Kitchen scrap buckets are a convenient way to collect fruit and vegetable peelings in your kitchen. Once it fills up, just empty it into your compost bin.
Please call the DPW at 508-624-6910 X 7100 prior to arrival to assure composters are on hand and ready for sale.
City of Marlborough Composting page
What is Composting?
Composting is the controlled decomposition of organic material. Naturally occurring soil organisms recycle nitrogen, potash, phosphorus, and other plant nutrients as they convert the organic material into rich soil.
Benefits of Composting
Composting is a convenient, beneficial and inexpensive way to handle your organic waste and help the environment. Composting:
· reduces the volume of garbage requiring disposal;
· saves money for you and your community in reduced soil purchases and reduced local disposal costs; and
· enriches the soil. Using compost adds essential nutrients, improves soil structure, which allows better root growth, and increases moisture and nutrient retention in the soil. Plants love compost!
What You Should Compost
Yard wastes such as leaves, grass clippings and weeds make excellent compost. All fruit and vegetable scraps, plus food wastes such as coffee grounds, tea bags, and eggs shells, can be composted. To keep animals and odors out of your pile, do not add meat, bones, fatty food wastes (such as cheese, grease and oils), dog and cat litter, and diseased plants. Do not add invasive weeds and weeds that have gone to seed.
How to Make a Compost Pile
There are as many different ways to make compost as there are people who do it. The following guidelines will get you started, but soon your own experience will help you tailor a method that best fits your needs.
Step 1: Purchase a compost bin.
Composting bins are available for sale to the public for $25.
There are two types: New Age Composter & the Earth Machine. Both work equally well in composting and creating soil for gardens, etc. The New Age Composter is shaped like a cylinder and can be adjusted to four different sizes. If you need a large composter, this one would most likely suit your needs best. The Earth Machine is circular, and comes in one size only, suitable for normal capacity. It has an added feature of a sliding door on the bottom, which makes it easier to remove soil.
If you would like to purchase a bin, you can pick one up at the Marlborough DPW, located at 135 Neil St., for $25. Checks should be made payable to "City of Marlborough". Composter availability hours are Monday through Friday 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM.
Enclosed, or covered compost piles keep out pests, hold heat and moisture in, and have a neat appearance. Bins can also be simply made of wire, wood, pallets, concrete blocks, even garbage cans with drainage holes drilled in them. In urban areas, rodent-resistant compost bins - having a secure cover and floor and openings no wider than one-half inch - must be used.
Step 2: Set up the bin in a convenient, shady area with good drainage. A pile that is about three feet square and three feet high will help maintain the heat generated by the composting organisms throughout the winter. Although a smaller pile may not retain heat, it will compost.
Step 3: Start the pile with a layer of coarse material such as corn stalks to build in air passages. Add alternating layers of "brown" and "green" materials and mix them together. Sprinkle with soil every 12 inches. Be sure to bury food scraps in the center of the pile. Shred leaves or run over them with a lawn mower to shorten the composting time. Save several bags of leaves to add in the spring and summer when "browns" are scarce.
High Nitrogen "Green" Ingredients
· Grass Clippings
· Weeds
· Food Wastes (fruit & vegetables, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells)
· Manure (cow, horse, chicken, rabbit)
· Seaweed
· Alfalfa Hay/Meal
· Blood Meal
High Carbon "Brown" Ingredients Autumn Leaves
· Straw
· Paper/Cardboard: paper towels, napkins, bags, plates, coffee filters, tissue and newspaper
· Cornstalks
· Wood chips
· Saw Dust
· Pine Needles
Step 4: Add water as you build the pile if the materials are dry.
Step 5: As time goes on, keep oxygen available to the compost critters by fluffing the pile with a hoe or compost turning tool each time you add material. A complete turning of the pile - so the top becomes the bottom - in spring and fall should result in finished compost within a year. More frequent turning will shorten the composting time.
How to Use Compost
When the composted materials look like rich, brown soil, it is ready to use. Apply one-half to three inches of finished compost and mix it in with the top four inches of soil about one month before planting. Compost can be applied as a top dressing in the garden throughout the summer. Compost is excellent for reseeding lawns, and it can be spread one-quarter inch deep over the entire lawn to rejuvenate the turf. To make potting soil, mix equal parts compost, sand and loam. You may put the compost through a screen to remove large particles - these can go back into the pile.
Composting Without a Yard
Composting can be done indoors using an earthworm farm. Not only can you recycle your food scraps, you can also have a steady supply of fishing bait! For more information link DEP's Vermicomposting page.
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