Why Compost?

We Compost Because We Care
We compost at our school, because we want to have less garbage. 


Our City's Goal
Our city council, the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (Fort McMurray) vowed to reduce the amount of waste going to our local landfill by 50%. Wow. 

The Problem With Landfill
A local
police officer talked about being at the landfill. In only three days, the garbage from our city of 90,000 people filled an area the size of a football field, 8 feet deep. Wow. It all adds up. And it goes nowhere.

Landfill is a huge pit, piled deep in garbage and covered up with dirt. The little organisms that are needed to eat food and turn it into compost can't live without air, water, warmth and proper food. They also don't eat plastic, metal or glass. So our waste goes nowhere.


All over the world, communities are trying to deal with mountains of trash.

Oil & Energy

It's not just about trash. It's about the pollution and oil and energy consumption in the creation and transportation of food and packaging in the first place.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot.
Our municipality has done several things to help reduce waste:
1. Single-use bag ban.  Stores are not allowed to give out single-use polyethylene bags. (Check out our school's Bag Ban year)
2. Recycling pick-up from houses.
3. Home pick-up of compostable lawn & garden waste in the summer, and pumpkins in early November.
4. Chipping of Christmas trees, for trails in parks.



Municipal Composting
Some communities have home compost pick-up, just like home recycling pick-up. Our municipality does not yet have a year-round pick-up system for kitchen compostable waste. But they are encouraging families to compost at home. They're distributing 500 Green Cone composters at below cost, available at the landfill site.

School Composting We're mostly doing it to cut down on our own garbage.

What We Learn
We're learning about all the small and sometimes microscopic animals that eat leftover food and turn it into rich compost, like insects, worms, mold, fungi, bacteria and microbes.
When we take care of the little organisms, they take care of us. 

Compost is great for growing plants. Composting helps us see how nature deals with waste, and the cycle of growing and composting. 

It helps us be more connected with nature and the web of life. It helps us realize our impact and become more responsible citizens of planet Earth.

Curriculum Connections
Composting directly connects with many Science themes throughout the grades. It also helps students understand the Scientific Process.