« Pain compost », « peau de banane compost », « kiwi compost », « coquille de noix compost », « que mettre dans un composteur », etc<
Professionnel ou débutant, vous êtes nombreux à demander à Google ce que vous pouvez ou non mettre dans votre composteur. Aujourd’hui, on vous donne les réponses !

This is even more of a challenge for those who live in a flat and have an interest in indoor composting, but are afraid of the inconvenience it can cause

To make it easier for you, we've put together this little guide that explains what you should and shouldn't put in an indoor composter like the one Greenzy offers. Yes, not all kitchen waste goes into an indoor composter.

Your composter will love it...

• Fruit and vegetable peelings
• Coffee grounds and filters
• Vegetable garden waste such as spoiled fruit and vegetable tops
• Paper towels and tissues only if they are ink and fragrance free
• Some leftover meals such as pasta, rice, stale bread...
• Old composting soil
• Tea bags and infusions
• Eggshells
• Dairy products that are not too liquid and cheese rinds
• Peels from citrus fruits such as oranges, lemons, grapefruits...
• Fresh herbs
• ...

A few tips 

 Avoid putting anything like pits, nutshells or seafood shells in the composter. With the Greenzy composter, hard shells can break the grinder and with other indoor composters, shells may not be composted.

Eat a varied diet and avoid putting just one of the above in the composter in large quantities if you want good compost. As they say in the TV commercials, eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day😉

Your composter will not digest...

• Chicken because it is full of diseases
• Frying oils
• Oyster, mussel or walnut shells because anything that is too hard will not break down
• The flowers in the shop because they are full of toxic products
• Animal excrements (litter...) and human faeces (nappies)
• Cigarette butts
• Remains of meat and bones, fish including bones, shrimp carcasses... to avoid pests and bad smells
• Coal ash, barbecue ash, chimney soot
• Fruit and vegetable labels
• ...

 A few tips

In general, all non-organic waste such as glass, plastic, metal, etc. should be avoided. Toxic waste such as printed cardboard, coloured printed matter (magazines, journals, etc.), glossy paper, fabrics, etc. should also be avoided.

Also avoid putting in the Greenzy indoor composter anything from the garden such as dead leaves, wood ashes, sawdust and wood shavings, dead leaves and grass clippings... These wastes could take up a lot of space and prevent you from using the composter for a while. And, as we said, the composter also likes to eat a variety of foods!

The above list is not exhaustive, but it is a good start.

Do you want to make compost in your flat or inside your house? Greenzy has found the ideal solution for you. In addition to being design, the Greenzy indoor composter is guaranteed to be odourless and insect-free.

 Compost Memo

Sources 

https://www.consoglobe.com/compost-erreurs-eviter-2398-cg
https://zerocarabistouille.be/2016/04/27/defi-5-jai-du-bon-compost-dans-ma-compostiere-jai-du-bon-compost-tu-en-auras-plein/
https://www.monpetitcoinvert.com/blog/dossier-le-compost-pour-les-nuls/
https://greenzy.eu/?lang=fr
https://ledouavert.wordpress.com/composteur-collectif/

Stop mowing your garden to help the planet? A solution that can ease the guilt of the busiest of us who can't keep a perfect lawn all summer. Although this idea may seem surprising, stopping mowing your lawn can help our little friends the pollinators. These are becoming increasingly rare due to pollution. A good way to bring them back is to offer them beautiful flowers to forage on. So why not leave your lawn cut to the millimetre and let nature take over? This is what is known as the free garden.

If you want to start a free garden you need to know the basics! But don't worry, we'll explain it to you so it doesn't get too complicated. It starts with just let nature do its jobYou don't have to show her what to do, she knows it better than anyone! The rest is no more difficult, you have to make room for the native plants.

For the record, native plants are those that grow naturally in your garden, like daisies for example.

Finally, to work hand in hand with Mother Nature you can also use your shovel and potting soil to grow perennials ! Perennials are plants that will grow back naturally for at least 2 years after planting. An idea to use that good potting soil you have at the bottom of the garden while giving the pollinators new flowers to feast on.

Here are some ideas for perennials to complement your new garden.

To do good for the Planet and your food

To make your garden bloom

However, beware of certain species of perennials. Many species can charm you with their pretty foliage, but beware that they can be invasive. Invasive plants have no qualms about multiplying and taking over your new outdoor paradise, even killing off your favourite natives.

Here's a little memo to help you learn more about invasive species in Belgium and play superhero by protecting the lives of your beloved plants.

The little info Some invasive plants are exotic plants that have been introduced by man.

The memo is far from being exhaustive, so for you to be really well informed about invasive plants in Belgium, we leave you the complete list: invasive plants in Belgium. This list presents all the plants that you should watch out for in your garden, so don't hesitate to click on the name of the one that intrigues you to get more information about it.

This article was inspired by an action carried out in Belgium: "In May, mow to the stop". Le Vif, in partnership with the Adalia association and the Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech faculty (ULiège), encouraged garden owners to leave their lawnmowers in the wardrobe during the month of May in order to observe the reaction of biodiversity. On this occasion, the BioPlanner platform was created to list the garden and biodiversity areas and also to give advice on what to plant and how.

What a nice surprise to see the following figures after 1 month of experience!

Now that you've got the basics, don't hesitate to put your lawnmower away for the summer and keep yourself informed for the 2022 edition ofIn May mowing at a standstill.

To find out about all the native plants in Belgium: click here

Sources
https://www.dmag.fr/fr/inspiration/jardin-nature-libre
https://conseil.manomano.fr/les-23-plantes-vivaces-les-plus-communes-n4226
https://www.aromatiques.fr/108-plantes-aromatiques-vivaces
http://biodiversite.wallonie.be/fr/gerer-les-plantes-invasives.html?IDC=5706
https://www.levif.be/actualite/environnement/en-mai-tonte-a-l-arret-comment-vos-jardins-ont-aide-la-nature/article-normal-1434949.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=button&utm_campaign=EMTAL

While it is clear that composting has many environmental benefits (more details in this article), its economic benefits are often overlooked. However, sorting organic waste comes with significant costs. But how much exactly are these costs?

According to the Eurostat report, in 2016, Belgium produced 5,573 kg of waste per capita per year, of which 8.5% comes from households, which represents about 470 kg/inhab/yr.

Depending on the region and municipality, this impressive quantity of waste, whether raw (general waste) or selective (plastic, cardboard/paper, glass, organic waste), must make us think about possible methods of reducing or treating this waste.

All the more so when we know that, according to the same sources, 50% of our rubbish bins are made up of organic waste, i.e. compostable material that can be broken down and recovered in one form or another, in other words recycled.

The figures in France are of the same order of magnitude since, according to the Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME), 46.3 million tonnes of organic waste (excluding agriculture and forestry) are produced annually, which is more or less equivalent in 2015 to 260 kg/inhab/yr.

Although it is still very clear that the best waste is the one that is not produced, we are obliged to note that until we reach absolute zero waste, we must tackle the problem of recycling. Currently, in this context, two solutions proposed by the municipalities are used to recycle organic waste: composting platforms (which work aerobically) and bio-methanisation units (which work anaerobically).

In both cases, and not taking into account the problems of contamination that these solutions may encounter (some waste may contain unwanted pollutants), this recycling has of course a cost borne by the community. This cost is divided between waste collection and treatment.

For example, in France, the Federation of Medium-sized Cities (FMV) in partnership with Sita, the subsidiary of Suez Environnement specialised in waste services, found that the average cost of household waste collection in 62 cities with populations of 20,000 to 100,000 was 117 euros per tonne collected (ranging from 49 to 162.- euros).

This figure corresponds to a collection of the waste from the house to the place of treatment (if the waste is taken to the waste disposal centre, the cost drops to an average of 86,- euro). If 117,- euro per tonne of waste seems low, don't forget to add this to the 46,3 million tonnes of bio-waste mentioned at the beginning of this article (which gives a more substantial figure of about 5,4 billion euro!).

And this large sum only covers the collection of bio-waste, not its treatment! If we talk about the recycling of bio-waste, and again by way of example (this time in Belgium), we have to admit that the prices charged by the treatment companies are also not negligible. For example, the cost of composting platforms for municipalities is around 43.00 euros per tonne and 75.00 euros per tonne for bio-methanisation units.

Unfortunately, the value of these various means of recycling is always lower than the costs they entail. The same is true for the pure and simple incineration of household waste, which is very often polluting.

Finally, when you know that food waste is 70-95% water, you quickly realise how absurd these collection and processing costs can seem.

The concept of the indoor composter was born from this observation, among others. Greenzy!

Why not avoid this long circuit as much as possible on a recycling operation that could be carried out by each family without leaving the kitchen? By proposing its indoor composter which, from food waste, allows to generate in more or less two months a compost that can be directly used on one's indoor plants or on the neighbourhood vegetable gardens that are flourishing at the moment, Greenzy proposes a real alternative and a real economy of scale, all with a design device, without odours and perfectly adapted to families of about 4 people.

Sources :

1. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Waste_statistics/fr#La_production_totale_de_d.C3.A9chets
2. https://www.actu-environnement.com/ae/news/cout-collecte-traitement-dechets-villes-moyennes-fmv-sita-19374.php4
3. http://ecogreenvalorisation.com/wp-content/uploads/recyclage-des-dechets-organiques-alimentaires-3.pdf
4. https://dial.uclouvain.be/downloader/downloader.php?pid=thesis%3A2797&datastream=PDF_01
5.https://www.ademe.fr/sites/default/files/assets/documents/dechets_chiffrescles_essentiel2018_010690.pdf