I think it was last February, when I decided to start the Mulch Pile, and see what happened next. The idea was born much earlier than that, back in the early months of the winter of 2007. I had started using the fireplace but winters down in South Georgia are sometimes very mild so the fireplace didn’t have a fire in it for weeks on end. Instead of throwing all the paper products in the trash can I would toss them into the fireplace to help start the next fire. One day I noticed the logs in the fireplace were buried in a sea of paper towels and other assorted paper products. Did I really use that much paper?

If you think winter is warm in The South just wait until Summer arrives. I knew I might wind up with a junked out fireplace and would have to toss the paper stuff anyway. What a waste! So I determined I would discover a way to make the paper disappear, if not up in smoke. I had to rake some leaves up anyway so I pulled some old rotted logs into a six foot by six foot square, buried a bunch of paper products under a pile of leaves, and declared the whole thing a Mulch Pile.

My first problem was separating the paper products from the rest of the trash, and it immediately dawned on me that there was more than just paper needing a home. There were those scraps and peels from veggies, banana peels, coffee grounds, and all sorts of biodegradables that could be tossed into the Mulch Pile rather than be thrown into a land fill somewhere. I bought a small metal trash can with a step button lid, and declared it the repository of all things destined for the Mulch Pile.

The pile of leaves I started off with was about three feet high, so the original dimensions of the pile were six feet by six feet square, enclosed with rotten logs and fenced in to keep the mutts out, and enough yard debris to have a pile three feet high. Since last February, I have tossed in coffee grounds, egg shells, cardboard boxes, everything made of paper, Spanish Moss,  all manner of kitchen debris, and pretty much anything and everything that might go back into the earth, including this year’s supply of ash from the fireplace. Considering all of this, how large to you think the pile is today?

It is exactly the same size that I started out with. In fact, I’ve had to add more leaves and yard debris to keep it as big as it is.

Every piece of paper, every cardboard container of any size, including a very large cardboard box that served as a sort of control group, has gone into that pile and almost every single scrap of it has been devoured. If you think that’s odd, wait until you hear what has what might be the longest shelf life of anything I toss in there; egg shells. That’s right, those fragile little buggers that explode if you drop them on the floor hang around for a while in a Mulch Pile. Here is something else weird. If I toss a cardboard box into the pile I’ll find nothing but the plastic tape that was holding it together after a while. Today I went out and totally turned the pile upside down and found several pieces of plastic packing tape but no cardboard.

No, in point of fact it doesn’t smell to high heaven. Yeah, you can tell something is rotting away if you dig around in the pile, but it isn’t noticeable from the yard. When the weather gets very dry I’ll hose the pile down to keep it wet, but other than that I can forget it’s out there until I have stuff to add to it. In almost a year I’ve managed to put zero paper products in a landfill.

It’s a pretty interesting ecosystem in that pile, I tell you. During the Summer months when I would dig the pile up to bury things there were dozens of tiny toads that would be hopping around like mad. At first, I thought I was ruining their homes but I soon realized they were rushing forward, not away from me. As I dug the pile up, I would uncover termites, and other small insects. The toads had learned when I dug, it was lunch time! The would bounce in and zap the critters I was uncovering.

The mutts seem totally disinterested in the Mulch Pile. Armadillos like digging up the egg shells but the mutts can usually talk them out of it. Believe it or not, another item you would think dissolves quickly but doesn’t is Spanish Moss. That stuff hangs around forever and a month. Every once in a while I’ll toss a lot of yard debris on top of the pile, then wait a month or so, and then dig it all up with a pitchfork. At the bottom is super rich supper composed stuff and I transplant it to the top. The stuff on top goes to the bottom, and the cycle repeats. That stuff on the bottom is so smelly stuff, but I’m going to try planting some produce in it this spring. The only real problem I have with the piles is fire ants invade it if I don’t turn it often enough. Still, they do their part in breaking paper down to nothing, and my land fill is the same size it was when I first started.

If you live in town I recommend you start out small and evolve into something bigger. If you’ve got enough room for a wading pool you’ve got enough room for a Mulch Pile. If you’re looking to reduce the amount of stuff we all throw into landfills this is an incredibly simple first step. The earth will be much better off for it and the little toads will love you.

Take Care,

Mike