Do you love to cook? If so, you probably use onions often in a lot of the dishes you make. If this is the case, you probably use a lot of vegetables as well, which can result in having quite a bit of vegetable scraps to get rid of.
One of the ways to do this is by composting these scraps. But when it comes to onions, can you compost onion scraps? The short answer is yes. Onions, like any other vegetable, are organic matter and so they can be composted. But composting onions can cause some problems, which you should be cautious about.
The reason some people avoid adding onions to their compost heap is that onions have a very strong smell and release acidic gas when chopped up. Some people believe this acidity can affect the microorganisms in your compost. Others say that they include onions without any negative side effects, as long as you are not adding great amounts all at once.
Onions have a strong smell, and this tends to get even stronger as onions rot. Because of this, and to alleviate the smell, it is recommended to bury the onion scraps under about 12 inches of other scraps. Another thing that can help is to add shredded paper or cardboard.
If you have whole onions that you want to get rid of, make sure to cut them up before putting them into compost. If you leave them whole, they will try to reproduce and begin to sprout. They will also compost quicker if they are chopped up into smaller pieces, which is helpful.
M&P Engineering is a leading manufacturer and supplier of food processing machinery and food packaging equipment. With over 50 years’ experience, M&P has become a well-established and recognised manufacturer in the industry.
Our Onion Peeling machines are the easiest way to peel onions. They come with self-adjusting knives so that they can peel onions of different sizes with ease. They top and tail the onions, slit them horizontally, and finally remove the skin.
Our machines use a patented dry system that removes the outer skin leaving no slurry behind and provides a peeled onion that is comparable in quality to a hand peeled one. Our machines can top, tail and peel onions quickly and easily. See it in action here.
As well as our Onion Peeling machines, we also manufacture and supply fresh-cut machinery, such as our Radish Top & Tailer and our Carousel Grid Cutting machine.