Why You Should Think About Composting

You've made rolls from your leftover mashed potatoes, turned chicken bones into delicious stock, made vegetable peels into a kimchi, and yet you've still got a few scraps around that seem fit for only one destination: the trash. But, as Top Chef alum Tiffany Derry explains in the video above, what you choose to do next actually makes a huge difference to the health of our planet. A head of lettuce takes 25 years to decompose in a landfill, but only three to six months in a compost pile. So before you chuck your chard in the garbage bin, consider kickstarting a composting habit. Watch the video above to learn how easy it is to make composting part of your #WasteNot lifestyle.

Learn more about the Waste Not campaign, from recipes to events, and more.

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The James Beard Foundation's new cookbook, Waste Not: How to Get the Most from Your Food, offers up a host of delicious solutions to the pressing problem of food waste. Featuring 100 recipes from alumni of our Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change, Waste Not will teach you how to turn every root, bone, rind, and stem into an irresistible dish.

Waste Not: How to Get the Most from Your Food, published by Rizzoli,​ is on sale now.​ Order your copy today!

Maggie Borden is content manager at the James Beard Foundation. Find her on Instagram and Twitter.