March 20, 2026 • 51 mins
You may think composting is just a bunch of old banana peels rotting away into dirt but, friend, you're not looking closely enough. Inside that compost pile is a microcosmic universe doing some magical stuff.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, everybody, Chuck here with another edition of our think
Spring playlist, and right now this is something you should
all be doing, which is composting, and you can learn
a thing or two about it in this episode. Composting
colon Nature's most interesting process. It's really not too hard
and it really means a lot, so give it a shot.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh the Man Clark.
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and I think I'm neglected
to say last time you did. Guest producer Nola is
with us.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
That's right. So if you listen to the Shroud of
Turin episode and.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
You're like, man, that's not was great.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, that was no thanks.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Nol this.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Show. Today, I've been replaying my one of my favorite
Simpsons jokes ever, it's over and over in my head.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I laughed already just hearing Simpsons jokes.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
It was from the one of the Halloween episodes when
they did the Nightmare on Elm Street riff, these old
old ones where groundskeeper Willie was Freddy Krueger and he
turned into a I think like a shred or attractor
or something and ran over people or something, sure, and said, uh,
(01:40):
when you'd when you'd done, When I'm done, they're gonna
need to do a compost border them.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Oh wow, that is a bad joke.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, it was really good one of the I mean,
the Simpsons didn't get too punny, but that was a
that was a good one.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Well, anything goes on a treehouse before.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, you know, agreed.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
So you know, there's a bunch of cities that have
kind of gotten woke to the idea that we should
be recycling or composting our food. Did you know that? Sure,
I saw a stat that said something like forty percent
of food gets wasted. But I got suspicious because I
(02:17):
also saw that forty percent of the stuff that goes
to municipal landfills or trash is food waste, which doesn't
necessarily mean it's wasted food, because I don't think you
would count like a banana peel as food waste. Is
wasted food waste? No, it's a box.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
They're not counting food. Packaging is food.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
No, But I think they're counting everything that has to
do with food that could conceivably be eaten as wasted food,
which is not the same as food waste. The point is,
the legitimate stat that I saw just about everywhere is
that if you took all the garbage that the United
States rose away into a landfill, forty percent of that
(03:03):
is food waste. And I'm sure some of it is
a whole cake some complete moron through a whole cake
away for no good reason.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I was on a diet.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Well that's actually a pretty good reason. But you know
what I'm saying, forty percent of all that trash is food.
The problem is you might say, well, who cares trash?
It decomposes. That's great, that's true. It does decompose, But
in the landfills that the United States uses, we make
sure they're anaerobic. Oxygen doesn't get down there, so a
whole different decomposition process takes place, and in a landfill,
(03:36):
in anaerobic decomposition, methane is produced. And methane is bad news.
Methane is something on the order of seventy percent worse.
I know, there's a much more scientific way to put it,
but it's seventy percent badter than carbon dioxide as far
as greenhouse gases go. Yeah, seventy percent more potent. How
(03:59):
about that? Yeah, okay, so you don't want methane. If
you have to choose between methane and carbon dioxide, you
want to go with carbon dioxide. And it just so
happens that if you compost food waste, mostly carbon dioxide
is produced. Methane's not. So if you're diverting this food
waste from the landfill, there's a whole bunch of different
(04:19):
stuff you're doing. Number One, you're saving all that forty
percent of the space for actual trash, So you're extending
the life of your land shirts. You're keeping all that
methane from being produced. And as if it couldn't get
any better, you are creating an amazing fertilizer that you
can use to grow. You could grow a tree out
(04:41):
of a shoe. This fertilizer is.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So good, the old shoe tree. Sure, uh, yeah, it's
We've danced around this a lot. We Well, you just
referenced our and I don't like to tootor on horns
a lot, But that Landfills episode was great.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Landfills, and don't forget the plasma incinerator one.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Great. Basically any of our waste management ones.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Are yeah, what else I think gorilla gardening. We touched
on this sum and a couple of others. We've mentioned
composting and to the extent where I thought we had
done one on composting, not yet, but we had not
until about five and a half minutes ago. And that's
a guess. So if you write and say like.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
It was eight minutes, chuck, you're grounded.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So, like you mentioned, we did, I don't think these
numbers are accurate anymore. But we generate, let's just say,
a lot of millions of tons, hundreds of millions of
tons of trash, and about twenty five to thirty percent
of that is recovered through recycling, which includes composting, which
is good. But that number, if it was seventy percent,
(05:50):
would be amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Does it include composting that that recycling number? Yeah, oh okay, yeah,
if it be seventy it'd be great.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, eighty, why not, Yeah, let's shoot for ninety.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Well, supposedly Seattle itself has a goal of something like
sixty to seventy percent of all of its trash being
recycled by the end of the year.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Of course they do, because Seattle does it right.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
And they actually have compulsory mandatory composting now, like you
have to compost if you live in the city of Seattle.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Why don't I live there?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I don't know, I don't know. I asked myself that
a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
You know. Emily and I went for our two shows
ago on that lovely spring weekend.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Oh it was gorgeous and.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
We stayed extra in Seattle and after we were like,
we're moving here. That's it.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
It's a great town.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I've said it before on the show Dogs and Bars.
That was all it took.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah, Dog Bartenders, but.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Again, Dog's plain poker again. It's easy to fall in
love Seattle on a perfect weekend in April.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, I hear it rains there a lot, though.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I'd still live there. That's a great place. And you
know what, you may see us again this year Seattle. Tease.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Tease, You're such a tease, all right.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
So composting is great for a thousand reasons, but one
first and foremost is that it's not hard to do
and it's not expensive to do. No, if you just
want to be And there are many different levels of composting,
from big city programs to the home farmer that takes
it super seriously to just if you just want to
(07:24):
lessen the impact a little bit on your landfill, your
local landfill, feel like you're doing the right thing, and
get a little bit of nutrient rich goodness fertilizer to use.
You can have just a little, small, little composting operation
going on at your house.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, this is all. This is all you need organic waste.
And we don't even mean something that is like organic.
We mean like organic meaning it's composed mostly of carbon.
It was once alive at one point, right.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, and I made a poopy noise, which you can't
use poop.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So no, that's night soil.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
That's the opposite of what I should have done.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
What's a banana Soundoo? That's a banana sound right?
Speaker 1 (08:09):
You need soil, you need water, you need air or oxygen.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Right. So the organic waste is the stuff you're going
to have broken down, which in this case, in the
case of a compost pile, is food the.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Soil well partially sure, but.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
No, no, it's food for the things that are in
the soil, yes, right, it's an energy source, yes, yes,
and nutrient source for what's in the soil. So you
add soil. When you're adding soil, you're basically adding starter
culture to the compost. What you're doing is grabbing microbes
from say in your yard, and putting them on the
compost pile and say, dinner's ony.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
They eat and poop, yes, but you don't want to
poop in it.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
You need a little bit of water, like you said,
to keep it moist, but you don't want to keep
it over wet, because microbes like slightly moist soil and
then air because again again this is really really important.
You can let your compost pile degrade anaerobically, but it's
going to produce methane, which is bad for the for
(09:09):
the environment, bad for your neighbors, bad for your neighbors,
bad for you. It's gonna stink, it might blow up,
who knows. You don't want to smoke near what's called
a passive compost pile, so you want to just introduce oxygen.
And all this sounds very complicated. It's not. It's hitting
it with your hose. It's and by that I mean
spraying water on it with your hose. Is realized. You
(09:30):
can HiT's turning with your hose too. It's like turning
it over right with pitchfork. To add oxygen. It's as
simple as that.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, it's really easy. So what you're going to end
up with the end, like we said, is really fertilizer.
But it's uh, it's called humus. Don't call it hummus.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
No, that's different.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
That's two m's right. Uh, this has just one M.
And those little microorganisms in there, they're going to break
this stuff down. They're gonna eat it, they're gonna poop
it out and going to multiply, and there's gonna be
we'll talk about the critters a little more later, but
there're gonna be different critters along the way that eat
those critters than critters that eat those critters. And it's
gonna get really hot up in there. It might steam,
(10:12):
then it's gonna cool back down. It's gonna get smaller,
and it's just like this little micro environment. It is
really really neat.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
There's actually a food web in there. There's a lot
of physics and chemistry that's going on. It is very neat.
I'm fascinated by it too. But the upshot of composting
is that you're taking something and it's being broken down
into its constituent parts so that it can be reused
(10:39):
by plants and the whole circle of life can start
over again.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, you're sort of just accelerating the natural process of like.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Rot, you're optimizing it.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, like you mentioned a passive composter, which is to say,
you know, lazy hippies, you could just throw all that
junk out of your window if you want it in
a big pile and throw your some grass clippings on
and throw uh, throw your your fall leaves on there.
Just leave it there, and that thing will eventually compost itself.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Well again, it'll produce methane. You'll blow up, or you can.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
You know, you could turn it every now and then
and maybe avoid that.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
But uh no, I think that makes it an active pile.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Well, uh, slightly active pile then, right, I don't mean
like every other day just to avoid methane.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Maybe, but that would still technically be an active pile.
It'd be a poorly managed active pile. Slightly active, poorly managed.
So I'm serious, that's what they call it.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I know, Okay, I've just we'd like to make up
our own names for things. I didn't know you were
going to cease that, and oh I was in your
nine I gotcha.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Sorry, we'll call that the doobie pile.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Okay, no, it's called active management.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I just wanted to make sure that we got it
on the record.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
So the big goal here is to reduce your waste.
They say in this article ultimately will save you tax
money because your landfill won't.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I thought that was hilarious.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah, I mean, don't count on seeing any any tax
breaks coming anytime soon.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
But that got William F. Buckley's attention.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Probably, So so do you how do you do this?
Let's say you want to start composting. Hmm, there's a one, two, three, four,
five step process to get this thing going.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Okay, well, let's talk about them.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
The first thing you want to do is just pick
out the place you want to do it right, because it's,
you know, it's a bit of a mess.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
It's it doesn't have to be necessarily, but depending on
your neighbors, they might be like, well, great, I'm glad
you started an unsightly pile of kitchen rubbish. Yeah, in
food waste that I can see from my deck. Thanks
a lot for that. So that's something you want to
keep in consideration. Apparently, even if you do have a
(12:59):
very well managed active pile, what would you call.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
That I'm not making up funny name. No more jokes.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Ruined it it still it still may stink here there. Sure,
so you want it kind of away from the house,
but not so far away that if you're feeling lazy,
you're not going to go out and tend to it
on a daily or every other dayly basis.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah. And if you have that much land that you
have a compost pile a mile from your house, good
for you. Yes, sure you got some acreage. There might
be some local rules, either from your hoa heaven forbid
if you have to belong to one of those, or
maybe just your municipality might have rules and regulations.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yeah, so check with them first. Sure, that's what everyone
does before they start a compost pile. They go down
to city hall and say, what tell me the rules
and regulations surrounding composting in my yard?
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Now, I think the first thing everyone does is start
throwing their eggshells out the window. Sure, that's how it
all starts. It's like, I'm tired of these things being
in my trash. They recommend downwind because, like you said,
it might stink a bit. Sun is good in a way,
but you don't want it baking in the sun all.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Day, No, because it'll dry it out. Remember you want
it to be kind of moist, yes, and the sunlight
can actually dry it out. Sure, so you want apparently
the best place to put it is under a deciduous tree.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Good spot.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, because in the winter time there's no leaves on
the tree, so the sun's going to keep it warm
when it's cold. But during the summer it's going to
be shaded by the tree, so it won't dry out.
It's just perfect. It is a deciduous tree equals love.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Wind is good to provide little air, but you don't
want it blowing, scattering the stuff all over the place,
drying it out. Again, No good. What else? Drainage? Don't
start one in that old baby pool that you don't
want to throw.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Out, especially if your baby's in there.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, you want good drainage. Like generally you build either
build a bin. We'll talk about this stuff actually right now. Yeah,
but it's off the ground. Sure, it's on legs. Yeah,
although you can't have a pile, right, but you know,
generally you want to you want to build a bin
or buy a bin, right, And those things sit off
(15:18):
the ground, right because of drainage.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
That's part of it for sure. Yeah, you also want
dirt rather than say like a concrete pad or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, don't compost in your driver, Right, it's not a
good idea.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
As far as structures go. You can, like you said,
you can go buy one. They're not very expensive from
what I understand, right, Yeah, it depends on the size.
You can also say go buy some cinder blocks and
build something like that. Sure, But basically you can cut
compost structures into two. There's a single bin and there's
a three bind system. So in the single bin system,
(15:58):
you put new stuff on top, new and appeals. This
is what I think of when I think composting.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
You know bananabul.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Sure, Yeah, you put new stuff on top, and then
you take a pitchfork or shovel or something like that
and you work, you work it in to the compost.
And at the bottom of this structure, say it's open,
when you're walking up to it, the finished compost will
accumulate at the bottom. And the reason it accumulates at
(16:25):
the bottom is because it's a finer, finer grain. Yeah,
and that's it. Single bin new stuff at the top,
easy peasy stuff. That's in process in the middle, stuff
that's finished in the bottom, and it will just naturally
kind of separate like that.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, And when we're talking structure like that, if you
want to build one, you know, build a wood frame
and it's like got chicken wire walls and a chicken
wire bottom, and that gives you the air and if
you've got something to collect it underneath, it's going to fall.
You know, when it's small enough, right, some other stuff
might follow. You may need to add it back in.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
But with the three bin system, you've got, well you've
got three bends, you've got the starter stuff, you got
the once it starts to break down, little stuff, and
then you have the more finished product, right, and you
have to actively manage that system.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, that say some sounds unnecessarily difficult, kind of like it,
Oh you're a three bin guy.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Well, we're about to get into this for real. We've
been lazily composting for a while, but we're we're doing
our whole backyard like we're getting rid of our grass.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Basically, what are you going to do?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Compost mulch and beds and plants and herbs.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And zerouscape cackdye in and all that.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
No cackdye though we do have a palm tree. We've
had that forever though, you yeah, just getting rid of
the grass basically.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Because it takes up so much water.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It's just it's not good grass to begin with, and
I'm not the best about cutting it. Lawn mowers are terrible.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Plus you don't water enough. You never let a quarter
inch of water accumulate exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, just and you know it'll look nicer. So part
of this in this company that's doing it is it's
not just a landscaping company. They're they're a there're a
bunch of hippies. So they're they're designing it in such
a way that that feeds itself. And part of that
is composting. Gotcha, anyway, long, long way of saying, we're
going to start, like for real composting very shortly.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And you're going with the three bin structure.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I don't know. I think I'm going to build it.
It's well, it's the structure Emily tells me to build. Okay,
that's the easiest way to say it.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Got yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Uh, But if you buy one, like you were saying,
there's all different kinds just you know, look, look it
up online or go to a hardware store, and you know,
many of them will look like a big barrel on
legs and it literally turns like has a crank on
it to where you can turn this thing in circles.
It's old timing, so you don't have to use a
pitchfork at all. Right, you don't have to must your
(19:01):
hands or your hair.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
It's like a bingo yeah, spinner, but with banana picks.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Have you ever played bingo, like legit bingo in a
room with hundreds of people, not hundreds, well more than
like you and you me, yes, like a bingo parlor?
Is that what they're called. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
I've actually gone to a couple of like senior retirement
homes and helped out with bingo. Wow, And that's a
pretty pretty cool experience actually, because.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Do you run the bingo?
Speaker 3 (19:32):
It's, uh, you just play kind of qualified to run
the bingo right right, just walk around and point out
if somebody missed one that they you know that was
called that kind of thing, But did you want to
talk about taking it seriously? Do they?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (19:45):
My god?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
And then you have to be a certified bingo master
to run the show.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah, and they'll like tell you to hurry up and
like shout if you're if you're not like loud enough
or fast enough or going too fast like.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
So, the point is not to have fun, you know,
the point is to win. Wow, what do they win
their prizes?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah? Nothing much usually, I mean, but you can, I think,
like you can play bingo and casinos for thousands and
thousands of dollars. Yeah, usually at old folks homes. They don't,
you know, sure there's not thousands of dollars prizes like
honey and nugarettes, right right, exactly?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
All right, Well let's take a break here after we
have talked structure and uh, we'll talk a little bit
about what you want what kind of junk you want
to throw in that pile?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
All right, chuck, So we're talking what you want to
throw on the pile.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Right, You got your ben either a triple three banger,
got your site or single. You got your site.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
You bribed your neighbor to look the other way.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Your neighbor exactly. You bought a goat.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Oh man, talk about green living.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
My neighbor has goats now like five of them?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Are they loud?
Speaker 1 (21:12):
No?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Oh, that's great.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Everyone's a while to hear them, but it's a joy
to hear. So it's not like it's not like a rooster.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Do you wake up and look out and say morning satan.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
No, Well, goat's one of my favorites, so it's kind
of nice to have them around.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Are they baby goats or adult goat?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
No, they're big ones. I mean she got them to
maintain their property because she was tired of cutting. I
guess she didn't want to zero escape it, so she
bought goats. Right, anyway, it's it's awesome. Kitchen waist Josh,
that's what you want to throw in there?
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Well, yeah, that's the first one. That's the one that
everybody says. That's why you compost, right, Yeah, and yeah
banana peals everybody knows that. But did you also know
you can compost apple cores in orange rindes.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
You can also eat apple cores.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah, you believe there is no such thing as a core, right,
because there's not seeing people who leave their apple corese
left over. They can compost those things. Those are the
easy ones. You can also do coffee grounds.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Paper filters, throw that filter and all in there. Well, okay,
so let's just say I ate maybe a whole pizza
to myself. I've got a couple of napkins wadded up.
What do I do with those? Chuck?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Uh? I think you can throw those napkins in there, Josh.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
It is crazy.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Newspaper Yeah, corn cobs if you still.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Read a newspaper, if you get your news on the internet,
throw your laptop in there. Watermelon rds, yeah, seeds, leaves,
you know, the butt end of the asparagus that no
one cooks. Throw that junk in there.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
You can also do yard waste too, sure, right, so
you've got grass clippings, which we'll talk about in a second.
We've got a couple of warnings as far as grass
clippings goes.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Not too much.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
But like let's say you're raking leaves or something like that.
Throw some leaves on there.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, good crunchy brown ones.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
And you can also throw like trimmings from your like shrubs,
if you trim your woody shrubs. Okay, the key here
is this, chuck. You want to cut all this stuff
up in small bits.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, don't throw a whole corn cob in there. You can.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Your compost pile will just throw it right back out.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yeah, it'll just spit it right back out right. Very funny.
It'll make a burping noise. Yeah, they say to shred
the corn cob. I don't have a corn cob shredder.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
I don't either.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I've never thought about that.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I wouldn't waste like my blender blade on chopping up
corn cobs. I think the point is that's breaking into
a little piece of Sure, you can break it into
little pieces though.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah, you probably cut a corn cob up.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yeah, and you can also, like you can take all
this stuff and chop it. Anything you can put in
a smaller pieces the better. Yeah, because, as we'll see,
what you're really doing is you're not just breaking it up.
You have to look at it like what you're doing
is increasing the surface area. Some more microbes can work
on it at once.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, Like if if you have I know you hate broccoli,
butli you cut the little florettes off and you've got
that big green broccoli stalk. Yeah, cut that thing up
as small as you can, set it on fire you
have patience for, and throw that junk in there.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, basically channel your inner anal chef Chris, you remember him.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
The anal chef. Yeah, was that a real thing?
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yeah? Insert live Phil Hartman. No, I don't remember anal
retain of chef. Oh okay, I forgot the retentive part.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember, big qualifier. It's like, I
don't get that joke.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Mommy, remember the anal retain of chef?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, I do remember that.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Now. He'd like start to if he was dicing like
green peppers and one of them was bigger than the rest,
he'd just be like, okay, well, you want to take
those chunks and you want to put them into a
paper towel, and then you want to fold that up,
and then you put that into some aluminum foil. You
fold that up, and you put that in a paper
bag and you roll it up and then you staple
it and then you throw it away.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Boy man, that was Oh still makes me sad. So
you mentioned newspaper earlier. If you live near the ocean
and you've got your hands on some seaweed or some kelp,
you can rinse that stuff off, right, So you don't
want all that salt content in there. No, but it's
really good and nutrient rich if you rinse that off
(25:33):
and put it in your compost pile.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yeah, and it's also good for you to eat too.
I know I sound nuts, but just eat that stuff.
What do you mean people, it's so good for you?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah? Sawdust?
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Do you know I eat that?
Speaker 1 (25:47):
No? But like I'm building my compost, man, I can
put that saldust back in it. How about that?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Pretty neat circle of life.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Baby?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
What should not you compost night soil which is poopy soil?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And you don't go take a big dumpos No, no
you want to.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
No, that's not good.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
No.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Diseased garden plants, that's a big one.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Some of this stuff, though, as we'll find, doesn't quite
make sense. But it's just good to err on the
side of garbage in garbage out, except with compost. If
you put garbage garbage in, then it's going to be
really bad. If you put good, healthy garbage in, it's
going to come out as is quite good. So you
(26:34):
don't want to put any disease plants in there. Invasive
weeds are another one too.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, but it says you can also put weeds in there,
So I guess you just need to figure out which
ones are the bad ones.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Yeah, So this specifically calls out buttercups, morning glory, and
quack grass. I'm quite sure that there's plenty of seeds
that wouldn't survive the composting process. Yeah, but apparently these do.
So stay away from the quack grass.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yeah, that was I think that was the big mantrat woodstock.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Sure it's a gateway drug.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Don't have the yellow sunshine or the quack grass.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
It was the brown the brown ass brown acid, which
I mean, who about the brown acid? You know?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And what about you're talking about kitchen stuff? What about
meat and dairy?
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Oh okay, that's that's controversial.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
It is because Emily has taken classes and they were like, no,
don't use any of that.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah, that's like animal cells and fats in particular, they putrefy,
they don't decompose, and putrefaction makes some stinky stuff, and
I think it can also generate a lot of disease
bearing pathogens. So I was surprised to see this article
say yeah, yeah, put it in there.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Well, And they kind of said in this article, if
if you're really heavily managing this thing, you can do it.
But I don't know, I've just heard don't.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
They said, turn it into a slurry, which I don't
want to see freud Rich's blender at home fat slurry
groas with corn cob leavings on it. But he said,
whip it up into a slurry, and as long as
it's a good, hot, actively managed pile, it'll it won't
be a problem. I'm gonna go ahead and say, I
(28:16):
don't think you should do that. Okay, I don't know
what to do with the animal leavings, but I don't
think you should compost it.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
All right, it might make sense to you to say, hey,
I have an outdoor fire pit. I bet that would
be great in my composter.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
No incorrect, Although this specifically says charcoal ashes. I think
that's any kind of charred ashes.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah, like burnt wood is called charcoal.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
So are you sure? Because I know what you just
said was true. But supposedly the entire Amazon basin, and
I learned this from the Greatest Book of All Time
fourteen ninety one by Charles C. Mann. The entire was
on basin. It was a managed forest that the indigenous
peoples down there had made completely fertile and feakend by
(29:11):
instead of slash and burn, they were using slash and
char techniques, and there was way more carbon locked into
the charred tree stumps than there was the ashes, so
it became more fertile. So I have a question about
that one.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
You know, I'm going to back off of my determined
stance because I don't know.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
It would make sense if it was coal, like if it.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Was like charcoal briquettes, whcause they have cement and all
sorts of chemicals and junk in them.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
But if it's charred wood or would ash I wonder.
All right, well, somebody let us know, Charles C. Mann,
tell us.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
The pesticide treated plants. You you know, you know my
stance on pesticides period, don't use them. But if you do,
definitely don't put that stuff in there. Because your whole
thing here is you want to you want a more
or less organic compost pot right in the end.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And so one of the things that people love about
composts is it actually is organic. And we're going to
explain how. I didn't know this until we did this research,
but we'll explain how because we're going to go through
the process that your compost pile undergoes.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Right after this shit, all right, I did something we
(30:38):
rarely do which is look something up as we're podcasting,
because it just sounded lazy.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
To be like, oh, we don't know this one. Gardenslive
dot com says wood ashes are so strongly alkaline that
it doesn't take a lot to upset the balance in
the pile and stop the processing. You can add a
very small amount of wood ash from like your fireplace
(31:03):
or wood burning stove, but apparently not much. So okay,
I think you know, like you're kind of right in
that it's it's not completely fore boting, but but it
sounds like too much is not a good thing.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
I think that's what Freuden was just saying, like, don't
even mess with it, okay, put in animal fats instead.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Well, and that's what the person from gardens Alive was saying,
is like, it's so little that it's not really going
to make a difference. And if you're trying to get
rid of it in a different way, right, She's like,
it's not really gonna matter.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
But the but it raises a great question, Chuck, why
in the name of all things holy would it matter
what the alkalinity is of your compost pile? And I'll
tell you why.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Because it's a chemistry experiment.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
It is. It's a it's a chemistry experiment, but it's
also a biological experiment. You have a microcosm growing there,
and there's actually really easy things you can do to
optimize this and basically create a XANADU pair dice for
the the microbes and primary and secondary and tertiary consumers
(32:07):
of this stuff that you're putting in there to break
down so that they just have the greatest life that
any invertebrate or microbe ever had.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
All right, should we talk chemistry a bit then come
back to just the management and stuff.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (32:20):
All right, what you're really talking about here. For an
ideal composting scene, you need a disco ball, right, and
you need a proper c in ratio, which is carbon
to nitrogen ratio. And depending on how wonky you want
to get, if you want to start measuring things, you
can do that. But from what I gather, just try
(32:43):
and do a lot too, a little about thirty to
one carbon to nitrogen r and eyeball it.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
When the rule of thumb is this, if it's green
and recently deceased and by green, like a nice banana peel,
would qualify as this. Right, if it's pliable and green
or you know, again recently deceased, it is high in nitrogen.
(33:15):
If it's brown and dried, it's high in carbon. So
you want to actually when you're adding the compost, you
want to just kind of layer this stuff in about
those ratios thirty to one. And there's actually tables, like
if you're a big time into this, there are tables
out there that tell you just about exactly the carbon
and nitrogen ratio in each individual thing. But what we
(33:38):
said earlier, you want to avoid grass clippings. This is why,
because they're too high in nitrogen. And what happens when
you have too much nitrogen it's bad, right, It makes
your pile stinky.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Yeah, that's is that where the methane starts creeping in.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
That actually leads to ammonia gas. Okay, But you also
don't want too much carbon either, Yeah, because so carbon
and nitrogen. Carbon is like the building block, and it's
an energy source for these microbes. Nitrogen is essential to
their growth and their metabolic activity as well. Yeah, but
when they have this in these concentrations, that's when they flourish.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah. And the other problem with carbon too is it's
just that it breaks down so slowly.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Well, it depends on the source.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yeah, that's true. But generally a lot of the carbon
sources like newspaper and corn cobs and stuff like that,
it's just a much slower process.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Right right, So like they have much tougher structural support
in their cells.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
They have structural integrity exactly. They need to have a
good saying that rhymes like if it's yellow, let it meto.
If it's brown, flush it down. Sure, I thought you
were heading toward that. I was just kind of like
on the edge of my seat. No, like, if it's.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Green, I've walked right past.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
That's brown. Maybe there is one that we don't know,
or maybe someone can write one, like a creative listener.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I would love to hear it. I'll bet we get a
bunch of those.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
All right, oxygen if you're talking, if we're talking ratios
and again, you can walk out as much as possible.
But the good news is about your compost piles. It's
not like it needs to be like the oxygen that
you need no walking around to breathe.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Which is I think twenty one percent in the atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah, that's what we have going on. It can get
by these aerobic microbes as low as five percent.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Yeah, that's cutting it close.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
It's cutting it close. They say, try to hover somewhere
around ten or up right. And how do you measure that?
Speaker 3 (35:36):
You don't? You just aerrate your pile and it's fine.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
By either turning it or you can do hold PVC.
And I guess it brings us kind into the management part. Sure,
you don't just sit there unless you want to have
a totally passive pile. And who wants that? You have
to manage this thing, either every day or every other day.
Turn it, like we were saying, sure, either with the
(36:00):
little crank if you've got a handy little barrel unit,
or with a pitchfork or they call it a composting
fork in here.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
That's pretty fancy.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Probably the same thing in there.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
It's the same thing as a pitchfork, except like fifty
dollars more.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
You want to water it some, but again, do you
want to give watering advice?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
You don't want it for me. You don't want it
to be soaking wet. No, you wanted to be moist. Yeah, damp.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
People hate that word, so we'll say damp. And again
I mentioned the perforate of PVC pipes that can help it.
Says you can avoid turning it by having those pipes.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
I would still turn it.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I would too, just to mix it up right.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Yeah, but putting PVC pipes throughout your pile would make
it really difficult to turn.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
So well, you can pull them out, I guess you could,
you know.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
But getting them back in is a real pain.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
You can stick them back in.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Another way to get to introduce oxygen is earthworms.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Oh man, this is where I go crazy. Oh yeah,
we have a lot of worms on our property, just
because there's a lot of worms in Georgia. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
We did a great episode on earthworms, remember.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, And every time I find them, I pick them up,
I show them to Emily and she immediately says, throw
it in the garden. You know. And that's because we
weren't composting heavily. Now it's going to be throwing in
the compost pile.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
But these guys are great because they naturally I mean,
they do a lot of things, but one of the
things they do is naturally airrate by just tunneling through
that stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah. So earthworms and then worms in general are probably
the most important non microscopic resident in your compost pile. Yeah,
because they do so much. So worms and especially earthworms
and most types of nematodes, they actually go in and
like eat a lot of the stuff that's in the
(37:50):
compost pile, a lot of the food waste, right or
organic waste, and in doing so they break it down,
and as they break it down, they make it easier
for the microbes to digest themselves. Should we start with
the microbes? Yeah, okay, So again this compost pile, when
you add food waste to the pile and add soil,
(38:10):
you're introducing energy source to energy consumer. Okay, yes. And
at the base of this is the is microbial life,
bacteria mostly, but the bacteria go to town. They start
eating this stuff, and the smaller it is, the more
serface area there is, the more the bacteria can eat.
(38:30):
And they actually take the nutrients out of this and
use it for cellular respiration, which is why they need oxygen,
because they take oxygen and combine them with the carbon
and they create atp which they use as an energy
source to power their cells and live and frolic and play,
and in doing so they create carbon dioxide.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
So as they're doing this, they're actually breaking the stuff
down from what you'd recognize as a banana peel closer
and closer to that finished humor miss project product. Yes,
so you got bacteria and they're a big part of it.
And depending on the phase that the compost pile is in, uh,
the there will be different kinds of bacteria in your
(39:11):
compost pile.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, and it's not you know, just bacteria. There's a
fung guy doing lots of work. We mentioned nebatodes. You're
gonna eventually get mites in there, and slugs. You've already
thrown your worms in. Some millipedes doing some action, right
with all those cute little legs. And overall these are
(39:33):
known as primary consumers.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Some are are are all of them primary consumers?
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Well they're listed, okay by this person who made this
fancy chart.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
So then above that, chuck, you've got the secondary consumers. Secondo,
and those are right, those are the those are the
predators of the primary consumers, right, yeah, and then you
have tertiary consumers. They're the predators of the secondary consumers.
And so you put all this together and what you
have is a food web. If microbe is breaking the
stuff down, worms and stuff doing the same thing in
(40:06):
some ways, and then other predators, different graduated levels of
predators preying on the smaller animals to keep their population
in check and to keep everything in a perfect balance
so that it's as efficient as possible.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
And eventually a great white shark comes along.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
What gets me, eats the whole pile thanks to a
shark nade. What gets me thought, the best part of
all this to me is that if you look at
the lifespan of a compost pile from brand new.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
To finished humans, from to.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Humus, Yes, it's it forms a bell as far as
the temperature gradient.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Goes, right, Yeah, it's really kind of cool.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
So the first stage is the mesophilic stage. Yeah, temperatures
get up to I think forty degrees celsius. I can't
remember what that is in fahrenheight.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yeah we'll go with celsius though.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Okay, so it's warmish. And then as the cellular respiration
mounts and builds, more more bacteria born and start eating
and carry this cellular respiration out. The byproducts are CO
two and heat, and heat starts to accumulate in the
compost pile so much so that it gets up to
(41:19):
something like fifty to sixty degrees celsius, which is like
one hundred to one hundred and fifty degrees farrenheights.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, and it's hot. At this point, your organisms are
going to change. You're going to have thermophilic. These are
a little heat loving critters and they move in because
it's nice and warm. They're snowbirds, they're desert dwellers, and
they like it when it's warm. But here's the thing
is you want to like you want you don't want
it to get too hot, so you want to continue
(41:45):
to aerate and keep that temperature in check. What you
want is that natural bell to happen on its own right.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
So the mesophilic bacteria die off or they go kind
of dormant as it enters the thermophilic face, and then
after the thermophilic phase ends. The reason it ends is
because they've eaten up all of the stuff that's there
to eat, and only the hard stuff's left over. And
(42:12):
so the thermophiles go away, and some of the meso
files come back and new stuff comes in, like ecxinemi
seats ectinemi seats, which are kind of like a weird fungi,
bacteria cross and they break down like the really hard
woody shrubby stuff and they finish it off. And this
third phase is called the curing phase. Right, And at
(42:35):
the end of all of it, you have this great
nutrient rich hummus humus. But in the middle of that,
when it gets really hot, it gets so hot, chuck
that pathogens that can make you sick, that can make
animals sick, that can make plants sick, are actually killed
off in the phase, which is why when you get
your hands on compost on humus, it's organic. It's been
(42:58):
basically treated naturally to rid itself of parasites, pathogens, all
sorts of bad stuff, and all that's left is the
nutrients that have been broken down in the process that
a plant can use very easily. And again the circle
of life starts over again.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Yeah, and you know I mentioned sun earlier can dry
it out, but if it gets over sixty five celsius,
it's gonna kill off so many microbes. It's gonna really
slow down your process. Right, So that's another reason you
turn it is to kind of keep and again don't
have it direct sunlight, but it's going to keep that
temperature where it does its thing naturally, right where you
(43:37):
don't want to, you know, put a heat lamp on it.
I just want to keep it moist, turn it over
and let it do its thing. And you might come
out there on a chili morning there might be steams
coming off of that sucker. And dude, that's when you
just like you go hot dog, Yeah, hot diggity the hog,
and you go inside and you eat a banana and
you throw it on the on the pile. So when
(44:00):
is it all over?
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Man? I just love this is why I love Earth's science.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yeah, it's really amazing because it's like it requires a
little bit of human management, but then you kind of
just step away and say, do your thing. Yeah, it's
really neat.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
When is it over? Well, you can tell. There's a
few ways of being able to tell. The temperature starts
to go down. If it's below one hundred degrees fahaheight,
it's out of the thermophilic phase, yes, and it's now
into the mesophilic phase. This says that it's probably done.
I disagree. I think you probably want it even cooler
than that, because the longer you let it cure, the
(44:34):
more diverse the microbes inside are going to be the better.
The soil that you use to amend it with is
going to be sure. Temperature is one.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
One of it is just eyeball it. And if it's
if it's about fifty percent decomposed, like if you still
see clearly a banana peel, then it's not done right.
You don't want to recognize this stuff as food at
this point, or an egg or whatever. And is it
is it smaller? Is if it's been reduced by fifty
(45:05):
to seventy five percent and it's dark brown or black
and crumbly and it looks kind of like soil, then
you're you're cooking with gas. As my dad used to say.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
The texture, did you say smooth or crumbly?
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (45:21):
What about the smell, Well, it shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
It shouldn't stink bad at this point.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
No, it should smell earthy. And actually one of my
favorites the actinum my sights. Yeah, the actin of my seats. Okay,
they are the reason that soil and dirt has its smell.
It's those guys, Yeah, they give it its earthy smell. Isn't
that cool?
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah? And I think we didn't mention you know that
it's doing well along the way if it stops smelling
like it doesn't just stink the whole time.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Right, And it's not gonna smell earthy. The soil that
you add will smell earthy. But when you grab a
handful of humus, it should just fall through your fingers.
It should be the closer to black, the better. Yeah,
and it should smell like every everything associated with earth
should smell like. It's like the word earth. That's what
it should smell like. Like, you'll understand what earth smells like.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Yeah, they said peat moss. If you if none of
this makes sense.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Go to your local hardware store or lawn and garden
center and smell the peat moss exactly.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
So, now that it's done, Yeah, you've got your wonderfully
natural fertilizer. Use it. Put it, Spread it out in
your garden, Spread it out around your trees, throw it
in your yard.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Spread it around your naked body, and run around your
yard if you want to. It's got a doobie pile,
will make it do or quack grass.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, stay away from that stuff. It's basically like the
easiest way to put it without getting too scientific, is
it's going to make everything better. Right, It's going to
increase soil microbes, it's going to increase nutrients and enhance them.
It's going to improve the pH and chemistry of your soil.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
Your yard. It's going to structure and again, like what
you've just done is taken stuff and had it broken
down into its components, unlocked it for your plants to use.
So your plants are going to say thank you brother.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Uh. Some people create a lot of it and sell it,
but you know, mainly people do this to just use
around their house.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Yeah, and increasingly towns are starting to do curbside composting.
Pickup food waste, pickup neat where you got trash, recycling
bin food waste, banana PILs, banana piels.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Right, that's it, all right, go forth and composts.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Yeah, if you want to know more about composting, you
can type that word in the search bar at housetif
works dot com. Cornell actually also has a really great
site about composting if you want to know more about
the science of it.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
You were very excited about.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
I love that site. And since I said Cornell, it's
time for the listener mail.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
I'm gonna call this wild life specialists. We had a
couple of these that wrote in.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Remember we talked about this in the Pain Scale EPs.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
And we kind of surmise what it was, and we
turns out we were right. And by the way, we
heard from paramedics doctors quite a few people about the
worst pain.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Yeah, you don't want a long bone fracture.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah, almost one hundred percent of them said of broken
femur is like the worst pain you can experience.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
And should we say why?
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yeah, go ahead, So several reasons, Right.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
We are right because apparently it's a very sensitive area,
but also because without that structure, your muscles start spasming, right,
which just rocks the whole thing back and forth even more.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
And then then like fragmented bone hitting nerve and all
kinds of badness.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Yeah, who, So steer clear of that.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
All right? So we heard from from two. I'm going
to read the one, but I'm going to shout them
both out. Hey, guys, very excited to hear you mentioned
childlife specialists during your recent episode on Pain Scales. As
a child life specialist myself, I thought would take the
opportunity to tell you a little bit about our profession,
you are right, Chuck, a child life specialist is we
help kids deal with being hospitalized. That's really the essence
(49:13):
of our job. We support children and families throughout stressful
situations such as hospitalizations, using our knowledge of child development
and play to facilitate coping. Child life specialists provide children
with developmentally appropriate education about diagnoses and treatments, preparation and
support for procedures and opportunities for normalization and play. What
(49:36):
a great job.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Seriously, I can't think of too many jobs that are
more rewarding than that.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Seriously. We also provide support for siblings and provide legacy
building and memory making and end of life situations. Our
profession is very rewarding. Josh, you are right. She predicted
that you would say that, and I love going to
work every day. To become a CLS, you must have
a bachelor's or master's child development or a related field,
(50:02):
complete a six hundred and forty hour childlife internship, and
pass the National Certification Exam. You can visit www dot
childlife dot org to learn more about it. Thanks for
what you guys do. You've made all my road trips
interesting and thanks for spreading the word about childlife. Maybe
(50:22):
you can do entire episode on our profession in the
future if she said pease okay, And that is Natalie Valentine.
And also a big shout out to Amanda Butler from
Auburn University who does that there. Thanks for writing in Ladies,
it sounds like just a really, really great job.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Yeah, thanks to you both for that, and thanks for
everybody who has anything to do with making kids who
are hospitalized feel better. Hats off to you. If you
want to get in touch with us, you can tweet
to us at SYSK podcast or Josham Clark. You can
hang out with us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
you Should Know or slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You
(51:03):
can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks
dot com and has always joined us at our home
on the web, stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com.
Hey, everybody, Chuck here with another edition of our think
Spring playlist, and right now this is something you should
all be doing, which is composting, and you can learn
a thing or two about it in this episode. Composting
colon Nature's most interesting process. It's really not too hard
and it really means a lot, so give it a shot.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh the Man Clark.
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and I think I'm neglected
to say last time you did. Guest producer Nola is
with us.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
That's right. So if you listen to the Shroud of
Turin episode and.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
You're like, man, that's not was great.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, that was no thanks.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Nol this.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Show. Today, I've been replaying my one of my favorite
Simpsons jokes ever, it's over and over in my head.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I laughed already just hearing Simpsons jokes.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
It was from the one of the Halloween episodes when
they did the Nightmare on Elm Street riff, these old
old ones where groundskeeper Willie was Freddy Krueger and he
turned into a I think like a shred or attractor
or something and ran over people or something, sure, and said, uh,
(01:40):
when you'd when you'd done, When I'm done, they're gonna
need to do a compost border them.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Oh wow, that is a bad joke.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, it was really good one of the I mean,
the Simpsons didn't get too punny, but that was a
that was a good one.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Well, anything goes on a treehouse before.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, you know, agreed.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
So you know, there's a bunch of cities that have
kind of gotten woke to the idea that we should
be recycling or composting our food. Did you know that? Sure,
I saw a stat that said something like forty percent
of food gets wasted. But I got suspicious because I
(02:17):
also saw that forty percent of the stuff that goes
to municipal landfills or trash is food waste, which doesn't
necessarily mean it's wasted food, because I don't think you
would count like a banana peel as food waste. Is
wasted food waste? No, it's a box.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
They're not counting food. Packaging is food.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
No, But I think they're counting everything that has to
do with food that could conceivably be eaten as wasted food,
which is not the same as food waste. The point is,
the legitimate stat that I saw just about everywhere is
that if you took all the garbage that the United
States rose away into a landfill, forty percent of that
(03:03):
is food waste. And I'm sure some of it is
a whole cake some complete moron through a whole cake
away for no good reason.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I was on a diet.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Well that's actually a pretty good reason. But you know
what I'm saying, forty percent of all that trash is food.
The problem is you might say, well, who cares trash?
It decomposes. That's great, that's true. It does decompose, But
in the landfills that the United States uses, we make
sure they're anaerobic. Oxygen doesn't get down there, so a
whole different decomposition process takes place, and in a landfill,
(03:36):
in anaerobic decomposition, methane is produced. And methane is bad news.
Methane is something on the order of seventy percent worse.
I know, there's a much more scientific way to put it,
but it's seventy percent badter than carbon dioxide as far
as greenhouse gases go. Yeah, seventy percent more potent. How
(03:59):
about that? Yeah, okay, so you don't want methane. If
you have to choose between methane and carbon dioxide, you
want to go with carbon dioxide. And it just so
happens that if you compost food waste, mostly carbon dioxide
is produced. Methane's not. So if you're diverting this food
waste from the landfill, there's a whole bunch of different
(04:19):
stuff you're doing. Number One, you're saving all that forty
percent of the space for actual trash, So you're extending
the life of your land shirts. You're keeping all that
methane from being produced. And as if it couldn't get
any better, you are creating an amazing fertilizer that you
can use to grow. You could grow a tree out
(04:41):
of a shoe. This fertilizer is.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So good, the old shoe tree. Sure, uh, yeah, it's
We've danced around this a lot. We Well, you just
referenced our and I don't like to tootor on horns
a lot, But that Landfills episode was great.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Landfills, and don't forget the plasma incinerator one.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Great. Basically any of our waste management ones.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Are yeah, what else I think gorilla gardening. We touched
on this sum and a couple of others. We've mentioned
composting and to the extent where I thought we had
done one on composting, not yet, but we had not
until about five and a half minutes ago. And that's
a guess. So if you write and say like.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
It was eight minutes, chuck, you're grounded.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So, like you mentioned, we did, I don't think these
numbers are accurate anymore. But we generate, let's just say,
a lot of millions of tons, hundreds of millions of
tons of trash, and about twenty five to thirty percent
of that is recovered through recycling, which includes composting, which
is good. But that number, if it was seventy percent,
(05:50):
would be amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Does it include composting that that recycling number? Yeah, oh okay, yeah,
if it be seventy it'd be great.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, eighty, why not, Yeah, let's shoot for ninety.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Well, supposedly Seattle itself has a goal of something like
sixty to seventy percent of all of its trash being
recycled by the end of the year.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Of course they do, because Seattle does it right.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
And they actually have compulsory mandatory composting now, like you
have to compost if you live in the city of Seattle.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Why don't I live there?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I don't know, I don't know. I asked myself that
a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
You know. Emily and I went for our two shows
ago on that lovely spring weekend.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Oh it was gorgeous and.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
We stayed extra in Seattle and after we were like,
we're moving here. That's it.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
It's a great town.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I've said it before on the show Dogs and Bars.
That was all it took.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah, Dog Bartenders, but.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Again, Dog's plain poker again. It's easy to fall in
love Seattle on a perfect weekend in April.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, I hear it rains there a lot, though.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I'd still live there. That's a great place. And you
know what, you may see us again this year Seattle. Tease.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Tease, You're such a tease, all right.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
So composting is great for a thousand reasons, but one
first and foremost is that it's not hard to do
and it's not expensive to do. No, if you just
want to be And there are many different levels of composting,
from big city programs to the home farmer that takes
it super seriously to just if you just want to
(07:24):
lessen the impact a little bit on your landfill, your
local landfill, feel like you're doing the right thing, and
get a little bit of nutrient rich goodness fertilizer to use.
You can have just a little, small, little composting operation
going on at your house.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, this is all. This is all you need organic waste.
And we don't even mean something that is like organic.
We mean like organic meaning it's composed mostly of carbon.
It was once alive at one point, right.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, and I made a poopy noise, which you can't
use poop.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So no, that's night soil.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
That's the opposite of what I should have done.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
What's a banana Soundoo? That's a banana sound right?
Speaker 1 (08:09):
You need soil, you need water, you need air or oxygen.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Right. So the organic waste is the stuff you're going
to have broken down, which in this case, in the
case of a compost pile, is food the.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Soil well partially sure, but.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
No, no, it's food for the things that are in
the soil, yes, right, it's an energy source, yes, yes,
and nutrient source for what's in the soil. So you
add soil. When you're adding soil, you're basically adding starter
culture to the compost. What you're doing is grabbing microbes
from say in your yard, and putting them on the
compost pile and say, dinner's ony.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
They eat and poop, yes, but you don't want to
poop in it.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
You need a little bit of water, like you said,
to keep it moist, but you don't want to keep
it over wet, because microbes like slightly moist soil and
then air because again again this is really really important.
You can let your compost pile degrade anaerobically, but it's
going to produce methane, which is bad for the for
(09:09):
the environment, bad for your neighbors, bad for your neighbors,
bad for you. It's gonna stink, it might blow up,
who knows. You don't want to smoke near what's called
a passive compost pile, so you want to just introduce oxygen.
And all this sounds very complicated. It's not. It's hitting
it with your hose. It's and by that I mean
spraying water on it with your hose. Is realized. You
(09:30):
can HiT's turning with your hose too. It's like turning
it over right with pitchfork. To add oxygen. It's as
simple as that.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Yeah, it's really easy. So what you're going to end
up with the end, like we said, is really fertilizer.
But it's uh, it's called humus. Don't call it hummus.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
No, that's different.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
That's two m's right. Uh, this has just one M.
And those little microorganisms in there, they're going to break
this stuff down. They're gonna eat it, they're gonna poop
it out and going to multiply, and there's gonna be
we'll talk about the critters a little more later, but
there're gonna be different critters along the way that eat
those critters than critters that eat those critters. And it's
gonna get really hot up in there. It might steam,
(10:12):
then it's gonna cool back down. It's gonna get smaller,
and it's just like this little micro environment. It is
really really neat.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
There's actually a food web in there. There's a lot
of physics and chemistry that's going on. It is very neat.
I'm fascinated by it too. But the upshot of composting
is that you're taking something and it's being broken down
into its constituent parts so that it can be reused
(10:39):
by plants and the whole circle of life can start
over again.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, you're sort of just accelerating the natural process of like.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Rot, you're optimizing it.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, like you mentioned a passive composter, which is to say,
you know, lazy hippies, you could just throw all that
junk out of your window if you want it in
a big pile and throw your some grass clippings on
and throw uh, throw your your fall leaves on there.
Just leave it there, and that thing will eventually compost itself.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Well again, it'll produce methane. You'll blow up, or you can.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
You know, you could turn it every now and then
and maybe avoid that.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
But uh no, I think that makes it an active pile.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Well, uh, slightly active pile then, right, I don't mean
like every other day just to avoid methane.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Maybe, but that would still technically be an active pile.
It'd be a poorly managed active pile. Slightly active, poorly managed.
So I'm serious, that's what they call it.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I know, Okay, I've just we'd like to make up
our own names for things. I didn't know you were
going to cease that, and oh I was in your
nine I gotcha.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Sorry, we'll call that the doobie pile.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Okay, no, it's called active management.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I just wanted to make sure that we got it
on the record.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
So the big goal here is to reduce your waste.
They say in this article ultimately will save you tax
money because your landfill won't.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I thought that was hilarious.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah, I mean, don't count on seeing any any tax
breaks coming anytime soon.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
But that got William F. Buckley's attention.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Probably, So so do you how do you do this?
Let's say you want to start composting. Hmm, there's a one, two, three, four,
five step process to get this thing going.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Okay, well, let's talk about them.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
The first thing you want to do is just pick
out the place you want to do it right, because it's,
you know, it's a bit of a mess.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
It's it doesn't have to be necessarily, but depending on
your neighbors, they might be like, well, great, I'm glad
you started an unsightly pile of kitchen rubbish. Yeah, in
food waste that I can see from my deck. Thanks
a lot for that. So that's something you want to
keep in consideration. Apparently, even if you do have a
(12:59):
very well managed active pile, what would you call.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
That I'm not making up funny name. No more jokes.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Ruined it it still it still may stink here there. Sure,
so you want it kind of away from the house,
but not so far away that if you're feeling lazy,
you're not going to go out and tend to it
on a daily or every other dayly basis.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah. And if you have that much land that you
have a compost pile a mile from your house, good
for you. Yes, sure you got some acreage. There might
be some local rules, either from your hoa heaven forbid
if you have to belong to one of those, or
maybe just your municipality might have rules and regulations.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yeah, so check with them first. Sure, that's what everyone
does before they start a compost pile. They go down
to city hall and say, what tell me the rules
and regulations surrounding composting in my yard?
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Now, I think the first thing everyone does is start
throwing their eggshells out the window. Sure, that's how it
all starts. It's like, I'm tired of these things being
in my trash. They recommend downwind because, like you said,
it might stink a bit. Sun is good in a way,
but you don't want it baking in the sun all.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Day, No, because it'll dry it out. Remember you want
it to be kind of moist, yes, and the sunlight
can actually dry it out. Sure, so you want apparently
the best place to put it is under a deciduous tree.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Good spot.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, because in the winter time there's no leaves on
the tree, so the sun's going to keep it warm
when it's cold. But during the summer it's going to
be shaded by the tree, so it won't dry out.
It's just perfect. It is a deciduous tree equals love.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Wind is good to provide little air, but you don't
want it blowing, scattering the stuff all over the place,
drying it out. Again, No good. What else? Drainage? Don't
start one in that old baby pool that you don't
want to throw.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Out, especially if your baby's in there.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, you want good drainage. Like generally you build either
build a bin. We'll talk about this stuff actually right now. Yeah,
but it's off the ground. Sure, it's on legs. Yeah,
although you can't have a pile, right, but you know,
generally you want to you want to build a bin
or buy a bin, right, And those things sit off
(15:18):
the ground, right because of drainage.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
That's part of it for sure. Yeah, you also want
dirt rather than say like a concrete pad or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, don't compost in your driver, Right, it's not a
good idea.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
As far as structures go. You can, like you said,
you can go buy one. They're not very expensive from
what I understand, right, Yeah, it depends on the size.
You can also say go buy some cinder blocks and
build something like that. Sure, But basically you can cut
compost structures into two. There's a single bin and there's
a three bind system. So in the single bin system,
(15:58):
you put new stuff on top, new and appeals. This
is what I think of when I think composting.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
You know bananabul.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Sure, Yeah, you put new stuff on top, and then
you take a pitchfork or shovel or something like that
and you work, you work it in to the compost.
And at the bottom of this structure, say it's open,
when you're walking up to it, the finished compost will
accumulate at the bottom. And the reason it accumulates at
(16:25):
the bottom is because it's a finer, finer grain. Yeah,
and that's it. Single bin new stuff at the top,
easy peasy stuff. That's in process in the middle, stuff
that's finished in the bottom, and it will just naturally
kind of separate like that.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, And when we're talking structure like that, if you
want to build one, you know, build a wood frame
and it's like got chicken wire walls and a chicken
wire bottom, and that gives you the air and if
you've got something to collect it underneath, it's going to fall.
You know, when it's small enough, right, some other stuff
might follow. You may need to add it back in.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
But with the three bin system, you've got, well you've
got three bends, you've got the starter stuff, you got
the once it starts to break down, little stuff, and
then you have the more finished product, right, and you
have to actively manage that system.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, that say some sounds unnecessarily difficult, kind of like it,
Oh you're a three bin guy.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Well, we're about to get into this for real. We've
been lazily composting for a while, but we're we're doing
our whole backyard like we're getting rid of our grass.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Basically, what are you going to do?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Compost mulch and beds and plants and herbs.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And zerouscape cackdye in and all that.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
No cackdye though we do have a palm tree. We've
had that forever though, you yeah, just getting rid of
the grass basically.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Because it takes up so much water.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It's just it's not good grass to begin with, and
I'm not the best about cutting it. Lawn mowers are terrible.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Plus you don't water enough. You never let a quarter
inch of water accumulate exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, just and you know it'll look nicer. So part
of this in this company that's doing it is it's
not just a landscaping company. They're they're a there're a
bunch of hippies. So they're they're designing it in such
a way that that feeds itself. And part of that
is composting. Gotcha, anyway, long, long way of saying, we're
going to start, like for real composting very shortly.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And you're going with the three bin structure.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I don't know. I think I'm going to build it.
It's well, it's the structure Emily tells me to build. Okay,
that's the easiest way to say it.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Got yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Uh, But if you buy one, like you were saying,
there's all different kinds just you know, look, look it
up online or go to a hardware store, and you know,
many of them will look like a big barrel on
legs and it literally turns like has a crank on
it to where you can turn this thing in circles.
It's old timing, so you don't have to use a
pitchfork at all. Right, you don't have to must your
(19:01):
hands or your hair.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
It's like a bingo yeah, spinner, but with banana picks.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Have you ever played bingo, like legit bingo in a
room with hundreds of people, not hundreds, well more than
like you and you me, yes, like a bingo parlor?
Is that what they're called. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
I've actually gone to a couple of like senior retirement
homes and helped out with bingo. Wow, And that's a
pretty pretty cool experience actually, because.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Do you run the bingo?
Speaker 3 (19:32):
It's, uh, you just play kind of qualified to run
the bingo right right, just walk around and point out
if somebody missed one that they you know that was
called that kind of thing, But did you want to
talk about taking it seriously? Do they?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (19:45):
My god?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
And then you have to be a certified bingo master
to run the show.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah, and they'll like tell you to hurry up and
like shout if you're if you're not like loud enough
or fast enough or going too fast like.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
So, the point is not to have fun, you know,
the point is to win. Wow, what do they win
their prizes?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah? Nothing much usually, I mean, but you can, I think,
like you can play bingo and casinos for thousands and
thousands of dollars. Yeah, usually at old folks homes. They don't,
you know, sure there's not thousands of dollars prizes like
honey and nugarettes, right right, exactly?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
All right, Well let's take a break here after we
have talked structure and uh, we'll talk a little bit
about what you want what kind of junk you want
to throw in that pile?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
All right, chuck, So we're talking what you want to
throw on the pile.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Right, You got your ben either a triple three banger,
got your site or single. You got your site.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
You bribed your neighbor to look the other way.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Your neighbor exactly. You bought a goat.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Oh man, talk about green living.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
My neighbor has goats now like five of them?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Are they loud?
Speaker 1 (21:12):
No?
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Oh, that's great.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Everyone's a while to hear them, but it's a joy
to hear. So it's not like it's not like a rooster.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Do you wake up and look out and say morning satan.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
No, Well, goat's one of my favorites, so it's kind
of nice to have them around.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Are they baby goats or adult goat?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
No, they're big ones. I mean she got them to
maintain their property because she was tired of cutting. I
guess she didn't want to zero escape it, so she
bought goats. Right, anyway, it's it's awesome. Kitchen waist Josh,
that's what you want to throw in there?
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Well, yeah, that's the first one. That's the one that
everybody says. That's why you compost, right, Yeah, and yeah
banana peals everybody knows that. But did you also know
you can compost apple cores in orange rindes.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
You can also eat apple cores.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah, you believe there is no such thing as a core, right,
because there's not seeing people who leave their apple corese
left over. They can compost those things. Those are the
easy ones. You can also do coffee grounds.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Paper filters, throw that filter and all in there. Well, okay,
so let's just say I ate maybe a whole pizza
to myself. I've got a couple of napkins wadded up.
What do I do with those? Chuck?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Uh? I think you can throw those napkins in there, Josh.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
It is crazy.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Newspaper Yeah, corn cobs if you still.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Read a newspaper, if you get your news on the internet,
throw your laptop in there. Watermelon rds, yeah, seeds, leaves,
you know, the butt end of the asparagus that no
one cooks. Throw that junk in there.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
You can also do yard waste too, sure, right, so
you've got grass clippings, which we'll talk about in a second.
We've got a couple of warnings as far as grass
clippings goes.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Not too much.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
But like let's say you're raking leaves or something like that.
Throw some leaves on there.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, good crunchy brown ones.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
And you can also throw like trimmings from your like shrubs,
if you trim your woody shrubs. Okay, the key here
is this, chuck. You want to cut all this stuff
up in small bits.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, don't throw a whole corn cob in there. You can.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Your compost pile will just throw it right back out.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yeah, it'll just spit it right back out right. Very funny.
It'll make a burping noise. Yeah, they say to shred
the corn cob. I don't have a corn cob shredder.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
I don't either.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I've never thought about that.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I wouldn't waste like my blender blade on chopping up
corn cobs. I think the point is that's breaking into
a little piece of Sure, you can break it into
little pieces though.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah, you probably cut a corn cob up.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yeah, and you can also, like you can take all
this stuff and chop it. Anything you can put in
a smaller pieces the better. Yeah, because, as we'll see,
what you're really doing is you're not just breaking it up.
You have to look at it like what you're doing
is increasing the surface area. Some more microbes can work
on it at once.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, Like if if you have I know you hate broccoli,
butli you cut the little florettes off and you've got
that big green broccoli stalk. Yeah, cut that thing up
as small as you can, set it on fire you
have patience for, and throw that junk in there.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, basically channel your inner anal chef Chris, you remember him.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
The anal chef. Yeah, was that a real thing?
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yeah? Insert live Phil Hartman. No, I don't remember anal
retain of chef. Oh okay, I forgot the retentive part.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember, big qualifier. It's like, I
don't get that joke.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Mommy, remember the anal retain of chef?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, I do remember that.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Now. He'd like start to if he was dicing like
green peppers and one of them was bigger than the rest,
he'd just be like, okay, well, you want to take
those chunks and you want to put them into a
paper towel, and then you want to fold that up,
and then you put that into some aluminum foil. You
fold that up, and you put that in a paper
bag and you roll it up and then you staple
it and then you throw it away.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Boy man, that was Oh still makes me sad. So
you mentioned newspaper earlier. If you live near the ocean
and you've got your hands on some seaweed or some kelp,
you can rinse that stuff off, right, So you don't
want all that salt content in there. No, but it's
really good and nutrient rich if you rinse that off
(25:33):
and put it in your compost pile.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yeah, and it's also good for you to eat too.
I know I sound nuts, but just eat that stuff.
What do you mean people, it's so good for you?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah? Sawdust?
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Do you know I eat that?
Speaker 1 (25:47):
No? But like I'm building my compost, man, I can
put that saldust back in it. How about that?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Pretty neat circle of life.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Baby?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
What should not you compost night soil which is poopy soil?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And you don't go take a big dumpos No, no
you want to.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
No, that's not good.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
No.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Diseased garden plants, that's a big one.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Some of this stuff, though, as we'll find, doesn't quite
make sense. But it's just good to err on the
side of garbage in garbage out, except with compost. If
you put garbage garbage in, then it's going to be
really bad. If you put good, healthy garbage in, it's
going to come out as is quite good. So you
(26:34):
don't want to put any disease plants in there. Invasive
weeds are another one too.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, but it says you can also put weeds in there,
So I guess you just need to figure out which
ones are the bad ones.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Yeah, So this specifically calls out buttercups, morning glory, and
quack grass. I'm quite sure that there's plenty of seeds
that wouldn't survive the composting process. Yeah, but apparently these do.
So stay away from the quack grass.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yeah, that was I think that was the big mantrat woodstock.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Sure it's a gateway drug.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Don't have the yellow sunshine or the quack grass.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
It was the brown the brown ass brown acid, which
I mean, who about the brown acid? You know?
Speaker 1 (27:16):
And what about you're talking about kitchen stuff? What about
meat and dairy?
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Oh okay, that's that's controversial.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
It is because Emily has taken classes and they were like, no,
don't use any of that.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah, that's like animal cells and fats in particular, they putrefy,
they don't decompose, and putrefaction makes some stinky stuff, and
I think it can also generate a lot of disease
bearing pathogens. So I was surprised to see this article
say yeah, yeah, put it in there.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Well, And they kind of said in this article, if
if you're really heavily managing this thing, you can do it.
But I don't know, I've just heard don't.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
They said, turn it into a slurry, which I don't
want to see freud Rich's blender at home fat slurry
groas with corn cob leavings on it. But he said,
whip it up into a slurry, and as long as
it's a good, hot, actively managed pile, it'll it won't
be a problem. I'm gonna go ahead and say, I
(28:16):
don't think you should do that. Okay, I don't know
what to do with the animal leavings, but I don't
think you should compost it.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
All right, it might make sense to you to say, hey,
I have an outdoor fire pit. I bet that would
be great in my composter.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
No incorrect, Although this specifically says charcoal ashes. I think
that's any kind of charred ashes.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah, like burnt wood is called charcoal.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
So are you sure? Because I know what you just
said was true. But supposedly the entire Amazon basin, and
I learned this from the Greatest Book of All Time
fourteen ninety one by Charles C. Mann. The entire was
on basin. It was a managed forest that the indigenous
peoples down there had made completely fertile and feakend by
(29:11):
instead of slash and burn, they were using slash and
char techniques, and there was way more carbon locked into
the charred tree stumps than there was the ashes, so
it became more fertile. So I have a question about
that one.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
You know, I'm going to back off of my determined
stance because I don't know.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
It would make sense if it was coal, like if it.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Was like charcoal briquettes, whcause they have cement and all
sorts of chemicals and junk in them.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
But if it's charred wood or would ash I wonder.
All right, well, somebody let us know, Charles C. Mann,
tell us.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
The pesticide treated plants. You you know, you know my
stance on pesticides period, don't use them. But if you do,
definitely don't put that stuff in there. Because your whole
thing here is you want to you want a more
or less organic compost pot right in the end.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And so one of the things that people love about
composts is it actually is organic. And we're going to
explain how. I didn't know this until we did this research,
but we'll explain how because we're going to go through
the process that your compost pile undergoes.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Right after this shit, all right, I did something we
(30:38):
rarely do which is look something up as we're podcasting,
because it just sounded lazy.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
To be like, oh, we don't know this one. Gardenslive
dot com says wood ashes are so strongly alkaline that
it doesn't take a lot to upset the balance in
the pile and stop the processing. You can add a
very small amount of wood ash from like your fireplace
(31:03):
or wood burning stove, but apparently not much. So okay,
I think you know, like you're kind of right in
that it's it's not completely fore boting, but but it
sounds like too much is not a good thing.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
I think that's what Freuden was just saying, like, don't
even mess with it, okay, put in animal fats instead.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Well, and that's what the person from gardens Alive was saying,
is like, it's so little that it's not really going
to make a difference. And if you're trying to get
rid of it in a different way, right, She's like,
it's not really gonna matter.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
But the but it raises a great question, Chuck, why
in the name of all things holy would it matter
what the alkalinity is of your compost pile? And I'll
tell you why.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Because it's a chemistry experiment.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
It is. It's a it's a chemistry experiment, but it's
also a biological experiment. You have a microcosm growing there,
and there's actually really easy things you can do to
optimize this and basically create a XANADU pair dice for
the the microbes and primary and secondary and tertiary consumers
(32:07):
of this stuff that you're putting in there to break
down so that they just have the greatest life that
any invertebrate or microbe ever had.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
All right, should we talk chemistry a bit then come
back to just the management and stuff.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (32:20):
All right, what you're really talking about here. For an
ideal composting scene, you need a disco ball, right, and
you need a proper c in ratio, which is carbon
to nitrogen ratio. And depending on how wonky you want
to get, if you want to start measuring things, you
can do that. But from what I gather, just try
(32:43):
and do a lot too, a little about thirty to
one carbon to nitrogen r and eyeball it.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
When the rule of thumb is this, if it's green
and recently deceased and by green, like a nice banana peel,
would qualify as this. Right, if it's pliable and green
or you know, again recently deceased, it is high in nitrogen.
(33:15):
If it's brown and dried, it's high in carbon. So
you want to actually when you're adding the compost, you
want to just kind of layer this stuff in about
those ratios thirty to one. And there's actually tables, like
if you're a big time into this, there are tables
out there that tell you just about exactly the carbon
and nitrogen ratio in each individual thing. But what we
(33:38):
said earlier, you want to avoid grass clippings. This is why,
because they're too high in nitrogen. And what happens when
you have too much nitrogen it's bad, right, It makes
your pile stinky.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Yeah, that's is that where the methane starts creeping in.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
That actually leads to ammonia gas. Okay, But you also
don't want too much carbon either, Yeah, because so carbon
and nitrogen. Carbon is like the building block, and it's
an energy source for these microbes. Nitrogen is essential to
their growth and their metabolic activity as well. Yeah, but
when they have this in these concentrations, that's when they flourish.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah. And the other problem with carbon too is it's
just that it breaks down so slowly.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Well, it depends on the source.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yeah, that's true. But generally a lot of the carbon
sources like newspaper and corn cobs and stuff like that,
it's just a much slower process.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Right right, So like they have much tougher structural support
in their cells.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
They have structural integrity exactly. They need to have a
good saying that rhymes like if it's yellow, let it meto.
If it's brown, flush it down. Sure, I thought you
were heading toward that. I was just kind of like
on the edge of my seat. No, like, if it's.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Green, I've walked right past.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
That's brown. Maybe there is one that we don't know,
or maybe someone can write one, like a creative listener.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I would love to hear it. I'll bet we get a
bunch of those.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
All right, oxygen if you're talking, if we're talking ratios
and again, you can walk out as much as possible.
But the good news is about your compost piles. It's
not like it needs to be like the oxygen that
you need no walking around to breathe.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Which is I think twenty one percent in the atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah, that's what we have going on. It can get
by these aerobic microbes as low as five percent.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Yeah, that's cutting it close.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
It's cutting it close. They say, try to hover somewhere
around ten or up right. And how do you measure that?
Speaker 3 (35:36):
You don't? You just aerrate your pile and it's fine.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
By either turning it or you can do hold PVC.
And I guess it brings us kind into the management part. Sure,
you don't just sit there unless you want to have
a totally passive pile. And who wants that? You have
to manage this thing, either every day or every other day.
Turn it, like we were saying, sure, either with the
(36:00):
little crank if you've got a handy little barrel unit,
or with a pitchfork or they call it a composting
fork in here.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
That's pretty fancy.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Probably the same thing in there.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
It's the same thing as a pitchfork, except like fifty
dollars more.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
You want to water it some, but again, do you
want to give watering advice?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
You don't want it for me. You don't want it
to be soaking wet. No, you wanted to be moist. Yeah, damp.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
People hate that word, so we'll say damp. And again
I mentioned the perforate of PVC pipes that can help it.
Says you can avoid turning it by having those pipes.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
I would still turn it.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I would too, just to mix it up right.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Yeah, but putting PVC pipes throughout your pile would make
it really difficult to turn.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
So well, you can pull them out, I guess you could,
you know.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
But getting them back in is a real pain.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
You can stick them back in.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Another way to get to introduce oxygen is earthworms.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Oh man, this is where I go crazy. Oh yeah,
we have a lot of worms on our property, just
because there's a lot of worms in Georgia. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
We did a great episode on earthworms, remember.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, And every time I find them, I pick them up,
I show them to Emily and she immediately says, throw
it in the garden. You know. And that's because we
weren't composting heavily. Now it's going to be throwing in
the compost pile.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
But these guys are great because they naturally I mean,
they do a lot of things, but one of the
things they do is naturally airrate by just tunneling through
that stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Yeah. So earthworms and then worms in general are probably
the most important non microscopic resident in your compost pile. Yeah,
because they do so much. So worms and especially earthworms
and most types of nematodes, they actually go in and
like eat a lot of the stuff that's in the
(37:50):
compost pile, a lot of the food waste, right or
organic waste, and in doing so they break it down,
and as they break it down, they make it easier
for the microbes to digest themselves. Should we start with
the microbes? Yeah, okay, So again this compost pile, when
you add food waste to the pile and add soil,
(38:10):
you're introducing energy source to energy consumer. Okay, yes. And
at the base of this is the is microbial life,
bacteria mostly, but the bacteria go to town. They start
eating this stuff, and the smaller it is, the more
serface area there is, the more the bacteria can eat.
(38:30):
And they actually take the nutrients out of this and
use it for cellular respiration, which is why they need oxygen,
because they take oxygen and combine them with the carbon
and they create atp which they use as an energy
source to power their cells and live and frolic and play,
and in doing so they create carbon dioxide.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
So as they're doing this, they're actually breaking the stuff
down from what you'd recognize as a banana peel closer
and closer to that finished humor miss project product. Yes,
so you got bacteria and they're a big part of it.
And depending on the phase that the compost pile is in, uh,
the there will be different kinds of bacteria in your
(39:11):
compost pile.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, and it's not you know, just bacteria. There's a
fung guy doing lots of work. We mentioned nebatodes. You're
gonna eventually get mites in there, and slugs. You've already
thrown your worms in. Some millipedes doing some action, right
with all those cute little legs. And overall these are
(39:33):
known as primary consumers.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Some are are are all of them primary consumers?
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Well they're listed, okay by this person who made this
fancy chart.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
So then above that, chuck, you've got the secondary consumers. Secondo,
and those are right, those are the those are the
predators of the primary consumers, right, yeah, and then you
have tertiary consumers. They're the predators of the secondary consumers.
And so you put all this together and what you
have is a food web. If microbe is breaking the
stuff down, worms and stuff doing the same thing in
(40:06):
some ways, and then other predators, different graduated levels of
predators preying on the smaller animals to keep their population
in check and to keep everything in a perfect balance
so that it's as efficient as possible.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
And eventually a great white shark comes along.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
What gets me, eats the whole pile thanks to a
shark nade. What gets me thought, the best part of
all this to me is that if you look at
the lifespan of a compost pile from brand new.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
To finished humans, from to.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Humus, Yes, it's it forms a bell as far as
the temperature gradient.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Goes, right, Yeah, it's really kind of cool.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
So the first stage is the mesophilic stage. Yeah, temperatures
get up to I think forty degrees celsius. I can't
remember what that is in fahrenheight.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yeah we'll go with celsius though.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Okay, so it's warmish. And then as the cellular respiration
mounts and builds, more more bacteria born and start eating
and carry this cellular respiration out. The byproducts are CO
two and heat, and heat starts to accumulate in the
compost pile so much so that it gets up to
(41:19):
something like fifty to sixty degrees celsius, which is like
one hundred to one hundred and fifty degrees farrenheights.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, and it's hot. At this point, your organisms are
going to change. You're going to have thermophilic. These are
a little heat loving critters and they move in because
it's nice and warm. They're snowbirds, they're desert dwellers, and
they like it when it's warm. But here's the thing
is you want to like you want you don't want
it to get too hot, so you want to continue
(41:45):
to aerate and keep that temperature in check. What you
want is that natural bell to happen on its own right.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
So the mesophilic bacteria die off or they go kind
of dormant as it enters the thermophilic face, and then
after the thermophilic phase ends. The reason it ends is
because they've eaten up all of the stuff that's there
to eat, and only the hard stuff's left over. And
(42:12):
so the thermophiles go away, and some of the meso
files come back and new stuff comes in, like ecxinemi
seats ectinemi seats, which are kind of like a weird fungi,
bacteria cross and they break down like the really hard
woody shrubby stuff and they finish it off. And this
third phase is called the curing phase. Right, And at
(42:35):
the end of all of it, you have this great
nutrient rich hummus humus. But in the middle of that,
when it gets really hot, it gets so hot, chuck
that pathogens that can make you sick, that can make
animals sick, that can make plants sick, are actually killed
off in the phase, which is why when you get
your hands on compost on humus, it's organic. It's been
(42:58):
basically treated naturally to rid itself of parasites, pathogens, all
sorts of bad stuff, and all that's left is the
nutrients that have been broken down in the process that
a plant can use very easily. And again the circle
of life starts over again.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Yeah, and you know I mentioned sun earlier can dry
it out, but if it gets over sixty five celsius,
it's gonna kill off so many microbes. It's gonna really
slow down your process. Right, So that's another reason you
turn it is to kind of keep and again don't
have it direct sunlight, but it's going to keep that
temperature where it does its thing naturally, right where you
(43:37):
don't want to, you know, put a heat lamp on it.
I just want to keep it moist, turn it over
and let it do its thing. And you might come
out there on a chili morning there might be steams
coming off of that sucker. And dude, that's when you
just like you go hot dog, Yeah, hot diggity the hog,
and you go inside and you eat a banana and
you throw it on the on the pile. So when
(44:00):
is it all over?
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Man? I just love this is why I love Earth's science.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yeah, it's really amazing because it's like it requires a
little bit of human management, but then you kind of
just step away and say, do your thing. Yeah, it's
really neat.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
When is it over? Well, you can tell. There's a
few ways of being able to tell. The temperature starts
to go down. If it's below one hundred degrees fahaheight,
it's out of the thermophilic phase, yes, and it's now
into the mesophilic phase. This says that it's probably done.
I disagree. I think you probably want it even cooler
than that, because the longer you let it cure, the
(44:34):
more diverse the microbes inside are going to be the better.
The soil that you use to amend it with is
going to be sure. Temperature is one.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
One of it is just eyeball it. And if it's
if it's about fifty percent decomposed, like if you still
see clearly a banana peel, then it's not done right.
You don't want to recognize this stuff as food at
this point, or an egg or whatever. And is it
is it smaller? Is if it's been reduced by fifty
(45:05):
to seventy five percent and it's dark brown or black
and crumbly and it looks kind of like soil, then
you're you're cooking with gas. As my dad used to say.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
The texture, did you say smooth or crumbly?
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (45:21):
What about the smell, Well, it shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
It shouldn't stink bad at this point.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
No, it should smell earthy. And actually one of my
favorites the actinum my sights. Yeah, the actin of my seats. Okay,
they are the reason that soil and dirt has its smell.
It's those guys, Yeah, they give it its earthy smell. Isn't
that cool?
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah? And I think we didn't mention you know that
it's doing well along the way if it stops smelling
like it doesn't just stink the whole time.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Right, And it's not gonna smell earthy. The soil that
you add will smell earthy. But when you grab a
handful of humus, it should just fall through your fingers.
It should be the closer to black, the better. Yeah,
and it should smell like every everything associated with earth
should smell like. It's like the word earth. That's what
it should smell like. Like, you'll understand what earth smells like.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Yeah, they said peat moss. If you if none of
this makes sense.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Go to your local hardware store or lawn and garden
center and smell the peat moss exactly.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
So, now that it's done, Yeah, you've got your wonderfully
natural fertilizer. Use it. Put it, Spread it out in
your garden, Spread it out around your trees, throw it
in your yard.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Spread it around your naked body, and run around your
yard if you want to. It's got a doobie pile,
will make it do or quack grass.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, stay away from that stuff. It's basically like the
easiest way to put it without getting too scientific, is
it's going to make everything better. Right, It's going to
increase soil microbes, it's going to increase nutrients and enhance them.
It's going to improve the pH and chemistry of your soil.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
Your yard. It's going to structure and again, like what
you've just done is taken stuff and had it broken
down into its components, unlocked it for your plants to use.
So your plants are going to say thank you brother.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Uh. Some people create a lot of it and sell it,
but you know, mainly people do this to just use
around their house.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Yeah, and increasingly towns are starting to do curbside composting.
Pickup food waste, pickup neat where you got trash, recycling
bin food waste, banana PILs, banana piels.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Right, that's it, all right, go forth and composts.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Yeah, if you want to know more about composting, you
can type that word in the search bar at housetif
works dot com. Cornell actually also has a really great
site about composting if you want to know more about
the science of it.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
You were very excited about.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
I love that site. And since I said Cornell, it's
time for the listener mail.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
I'm gonna call this wild life specialists. We had a
couple of these that wrote in.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Remember we talked about this in the Pain Scale EPs.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
And we kind of surmise what it was, and we
turns out we were right. And by the way, we
heard from paramedics doctors quite a few people about the
worst pain.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Yeah, you don't want a long bone fracture.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah, almost one hundred percent of them said of broken
femur is like the worst pain you can experience.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
And should we say why?
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yeah, go ahead, So several reasons, Right.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
We are right because apparently it's a very sensitive area,
but also because without that structure, your muscles start spasming, right,
which just rocks the whole thing back and forth even more.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
And then then like fragmented bone hitting nerve and all
kinds of badness.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Yeah, who, So steer clear of that.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
All right? So we heard from from two. I'm going
to read the one, but I'm going to shout them
both out. Hey, guys, very excited to hear you mentioned
childlife specialists during your recent episode on Pain Scales. As
a child life specialist myself, I thought would take the
opportunity to tell you a little bit about our profession,
you are right, Chuck, a child life specialist is we
help kids deal with being hospitalized. That's really the essence
(49:13):
of our job. We support children and families throughout stressful
situations such as hospitalizations, using our knowledge of child development
and play to facilitate coping. Child life specialists provide children
with developmentally appropriate education about diagnoses and treatments, preparation and
support for procedures and opportunities for normalization and play. What
(49:36):
a great job.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Seriously, I can't think of too many jobs that are
more rewarding than that.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Seriously. We also provide support for siblings and provide legacy
building and memory making and end of life situations. Our
profession is very rewarding. Josh, you are right. She predicted
that you would say that, and I love going to
work every day. To become a CLS, you must have
a bachelor's or master's child development or a related field,
(50:02):
complete a six hundred and forty hour childlife internship, and
pass the National Certification Exam. You can visit www dot
childlife dot org to learn more about it. Thanks for
what you guys do. You've made all my road trips
interesting and thanks for spreading the word about childlife. Maybe
(50:22):
you can do entire episode on our profession in the
future if she said pease okay, And that is Natalie Valentine.
And also a big shout out to Amanda Butler from
Auburn University who does that there. Thanks for writing in Ladies,
it sounds like just a really, really great job.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Yeah, thanks to you both for that, and thanks for
everybody who has anything to do with making kids who
are hospitalized feel better. Hats off to you. If you
want to get in touch with us, you can tweet
to us at SYSK podcast or Josham Clark. You can
hang out with us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
you Should Know or slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You
(51:03):
can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks
dot com and has always joined us at our home
on the web, stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com.
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