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Composting Salted Food Waste

 
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I'm looking at doing a kettle corn stand side hustle. While the stand would produce waste, I'm trying to be as conscientiousness as I can.

I'm not endorsing anything in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV1qeEryAb8) but I like its clear explanation of the basics.

Generally, corn oil, corn kernels, and table sugar are added to a heated kettle to turn it into popcorn. The small bits are filtered out, table salt is added, and everything is mixed.

I'd like to compost most of the waste, and I don't think the corn oil popped popcorn or sugar would be a problem (the biggest issue I have is the salt added later, or do you think the popcorn in general would already be too oily)? I was thinking of filtering out the small bits, stop, dump the unsalted filtered out bits into a bin to compost, swap to a different catch, salt the popcorn, bag it, and then reset for the next batch by (among other things) switching back to the non-salt filter catches. The salt catch bin collections would just be thrown away.

My biggest issue (I think) would be the with residual salt, unless everything was fully wiped down between batches (which wouldn't be practical).

Would composting this waste be beneficial, or would I slowly be salting my soil?

Another alternative is to have a separate compost bin and just for all the kettle corn filtered bits waste (just one catch bin collecting everything, including the salt). Other stuff could be added into the compost bin, but this salty waste could just be used for an asparagus patch.

Any thoughts or suggestions?
 
steward
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I don't feel that salt in compost is a bad thing as long as other brown and green matter is included to make the salt not a majority.

Best wishes for you side hustle ....
 
master pollinator
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Nice side hustle!

If I understand, you are only composting oily leftovers from the unsalted side of the process. As long as it's mixed with a large ratio of other compostable material, I doubt it will be a problem.

How would cross-contamination with salt occur?
 
gardener
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This waste sounds like it could be used as fuel or feed
It seems very likely to attract varmints, so I would lean towards using it as fuel.
If you could make it into another human food product, that would be the best outcome.

 
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From your description of the process, I wouldn't worry too much about composting the pre-salted stuff. Residual and incidental salt would be minimal in the grand scheme. I would not make a compost pile ONLY out of this material but rather incorporate it with other materials.

Rain and time will dilute and remove any excess salts and if you REALLY want to be sure you could look into materials such as Gypsum that can be added which would help strip out salts from your compost.
 
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