We have a household of two and I just started a 43 gallon capacity rotating composting bin. Our weekly egg consumption is high and there’s an additional load of volunteering (baking) where I have to dispose of 2-3 dozen egg shells at a time.
What’s the maximum number of shells I can expect to toss in the compost each week? Any ideas on how to dispose of the rest without going right to the trash? We only have recycling and yard debris pickup, no city compost options. Thanks in advance!
Some of these solutions sound more energy intensive than just throwing the eggshells in the garbage. Can salmonella really survive the composting process enough to contaminate food that would be grown in the compost?
Kind of. Salmonella in particular is highly resistant so it could potentially survive an incomplete composting cycle, E.Coli and Listeria die off relatively easily, but overall a couple months of higher temperatures should kill them all. There is also the risk of airborne pathogens like Legionella, Pseudomonas, and some others infecting the compost, which you may need to protect against until it’s fully done.
Biggest risk is not letting it complete the full cycle, and any airborne pathogens it could release in the meantime.
And those pathogens can infect the food grown in soil that’s been augmented with incomplete compost? I was under the impression that the pathogens would be on the surface of the fruits and vegetables and just needed to be washed off. This makes me not trust my neighbor’s compost pile.
Vegetables generally can’t get infected by pathogens that infect animals or humans, so that’s right, washing them off, or better yet cooking them, should be enough.
The airborne pathogens however… well, they’re airborne, so a poorly managed compost pile can spread them directly through the air, that you can breathe. Keeping compost piles in residential areas should probably be regulated.
I would rather try to eradicate it before the composting, so I don’t risk someone eating a tomato fresh from the sun, or something not getting washed sufficiently before it goes in a salad. But baking the egg shells not only kills salmonella and other bacterium, but it also makes the calcium and other nutrients more readily break down into the compost.
It’s really not a hassle, for me. I make a lot of frittatas, and also bake bread. So I’ll either throw the frittata egg shells on some foil as I preheat the oven and cook the frittata on a higher rack, or reserve a few days worth.
At some point I’ll have my own chickens, and I plan to vaccinate them. But I’ll still bake the egg shells, so that the minerals are more available in the compost.
If you have chickens, you don’t need to compost the shells, just crush them into the chicken feed and they’ll use the calcium to produce more eggs. Sort of natural recycling. It also prevents them from pecking at eggs and breaking them if they lack calcium.
Good to know, thanks!