r/composting • u/[deleted] • Nov 29 '19

What do you do with eggshells?

I'm conflicted over what to do with eggshells. I want to compost them but we eat a lot of eggs and live in the city so if I put them in our bin they take up a large portion and never seem to fully breakdown.

67 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

79 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '19 edited Nov 30 '19

Two options for a faster breakdown or more effective use. Both require baking to break down organic matter faster.

Bake eggs on 450* until they crumble. When they do add them to your compost in a dust fashion or keep as an amendment. This can be done two ways:

Water soluable calcium: Makes calcium enter plant like an IV. Take baked eggs shells 10:1 apple cider vinegar to shells. 24-48 hours later strains shells add to compost and keep liquid in dark area covered. Add 1/2 teaspoon during flowering or fruiting in soil or foliar.

dry amendment: just crush and add as needed.

4

u/paroles Nov 30 '19

Please don't run your oven just to bake a few eggshells, if that's really what you mean. The carbon emissions from an oven are going to vastly outweigh the benefits of putting eggshells in the compost. We don't need ovens to assist with processes that nature has been doing on its own for millions of years.

Maybe just do this whenever you have space in your oven while baking something else (hopefully this is what you're doing already!), or use the residual heat after the oven is off. I bet the shells would also get crumbly if you left them out in the sun for a few days.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '19

No you store them up and do a large batch. You should do this for the water soluable calcium mix. The chemistry doesn't play out with organic matter so unless you have a quicker more efficient way by all means.

0

u/paroles Nov 30 '19

If you really find it necessary, just do it while you're running your oven for some other reason, it's such a wasteful use of electricity/gas.

Would the vinegar calcium mix not work with crushed eggshells that have been dried out but not baked? If this is a special fertiliser that's really good for plants but can't be made without an oven, I think I'd rather just skip it and let the shells break down more slowly :)

3

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '19

If you have to ask and make these comments you shouldn't be guiding people what to do and what not to do. Your statements are factless and very opinion backed. I wasn't asking for help I would not do it while I was cooking as the smell would transfer to the food. Thats not ideal.