Green Kitchen Makeover: 10 Do's and Don'ts

Now that you're eating more vegetables, you're probably creating more veggie scraps. Don’t throw them in the garbage, where they'll just sit and stink: Compost them instead. Composting is a natural process that transforms organic wastes like vegetable scraps, coffee grinds, eggshells and yard waste like grass clippings and leaves into rich, nutrient-dense earth – perfect for potting plants, gardening or fertilizing the lawn. Of course, this is easier done if you have the luxury of a yard, but there have been great innovations in odorless composting indoors, if you can tolerate the thought of a worm bin. You may even be fortunate enough to live in a city that accepts compostable scraps along with household waste and recyclables at the curb. Whatever your method, try to compost as much as possible, because you'll both cut down on your waste and produce gardener's gold: Free fertilized soil.

Related: 20 Things You Didn't Know You Could Compost