Living beings create messes; humans, however, take unenviable first place. Our craving for acquisition — and resulting gobs of packaging — means that our species has the heaviest planetary footprint. The good news is that some necessary human activities — including eating, cooking, and gardening — can go hand-in-hand with practices that reduce the heft of our waste streams while yielding fabulous by-products, when undertaken with a bit of skill.

Autumn can bring both joys and frustrations: leaves are gorgeous while changing color, yet once they hit the ground, they can feel like a liability. Some people rake and bag leaves, transporting them elsewhere or trying to give them away. Others skip the raking and ratchet up the decibel volume by using blowers. A third option is to ignore the leaves, but that can elicit frowns when autumn winds deposit leaves on bordering properties.

A best-case scenario, known as cold composting, may appeal to those wishing to do minimum work while creating maximum benefit: black gold in the form of nutrient-rich soil. What could be easier than making a circle out of chicken wire, dumping leaves in, and letting nature do the work?

It’s important to emphasize, however, that such chicken wire closures are not good destinations for food wastes; that stuff needs to go into covered, more secure spaces.

This column touches on a number of ways to pursue the noble endeavor that magically morphs scraps and detritus into useful materials; there’s endless information available, so please consider this a primer.

I’m grateful to the folks who own the property where I live; they support my gardening addiction by allowing me to turn the front yard into a place to grow food and flowers, and are patient about the unavoidable by-products of gardening. I place some yard and kitchen wastes into one of three places. Squishy, ephemeral stuff goes into a black plastic eco-composter provided by my landlady. (They’re sometimes called Earth Machines, but that’s trademarked.) Some leaves also go into that bin, but the majority of leaves go into the chicken-wire circle, along with heftier plant stalks.

For those with access to a chipper (or, in my case, a friend with a chipper), a third destination is the Big Stuff Pile, which includes tree limbs, garlic stalks, and thicker materials that take a long time to decompose. At season’s end, you can chip that stuff into mulch for perennial beds or garden paths. Taken together, these three modalities mean that hardly anything needs to be removed from the property; it’s a closed-loop, symbiotic scene.

Amy Donovan, program director of the Franklin County Solid Waste Management District, possesses a wealth of knowledge when it comes to figuring out what to do with whatever we think we no longer want or need. Her acumen turns liabilities into advantages: “With its abundance of fallen leaves and decaying pumpkins, autumn is a great time to start a new home compost bin or to improve an existing system. Fallen leaves are a helpful addition to home compost bins, as they add the carbon necessary for effective food waste composting.”

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Donovan said that “since leaves and yard waste are banned from the trash in Massachusetts, composting fall leaves can be a useful disposal method.” She recommends making a cold composting wire circle “about four feet in diameter. After a year or more, the wire circle can be opened to shovel or spread finished compost from the bottom.”

Since many local towns have pay-as-you-throw bags or stickers, it makes sense to economize by keeping such stuff out of the trash and turning them into materials you might otherwise buy in order to grow a garden. Yet Donovan noted that Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) studies show that food waste accounts for 22% of residential trash in Massachusetts. “Households can save money by using homemade compost on gardens and lawns instead of bagged garden soils and topsoil,” she added.

“Finished compost is a soil amendment that can help lawns and gardens retain water, and it adds nutrients and minerals, helping to improve soil structure,” said Donovan. In addition to home composting, households that participate in municipal composting greatly reduce trash volumes. “The food waste collected at municipal transfer stations goes to local commercial compost facilities such as Martin’s Farm in Greenfield or Clear View Composting in Orange,” said Donovan.

For those concerned about climate change — and it’s hard to believe some still debate whether it’s an issue — Donovan pointed out that “composting organically based materials at home, or in a municipal or commercial compost program, reduces climate-changing gasses that are emitted from landfills, waste-to-energy facilities, and long-distance trash transport.”

Donovan and her cohorts at the Franklin County outfit offer easy-to-follow tips, as well as affordable tools and products to streamline home composting. The aforementioned Earth Machine bin features a door in the bottom that can be opened to shovel out finished compost. The Solid Waste District also sells low-cost “Sure-Close” kitchen compost collection pails: the two-gallon pail sits on the counter top or under the sink until you’re ready to take it outdoors.

You can place fruit and vegetable scraps and peels, eggshells, coffee grounds and paper filters, tea bags, bread crusts and the like in any covered container. Certain materials are not recommended for inclusion in home compost bins or piles, including meat, bones, poultry, fish, cheese, pet wastes, and oily foods such as peanut butter and salad dressing, but can be disposed of through municipal compost programs at many county transfer stations.

For those hoping to host eco-friendly parties by offering guests so-called compostable plastics, however, please consider yourselves warned. While digging in one of my many garden spaces, I’m still running across forks from a party I threw in 2001. In terms of home applications, the use of the word “compostable” in this case is fantastically aspirational. They’re technically compostable, but are designed to break down in much higher heat environments found at commercial compost facilities. Believe me: do not try this at home.

Back to realistic home composting: once you bring kitchen scraps outside, it’s important to cover them with fall leaves or other carbon-rich materials such as finished compost. Donovan emphasized that “covering kitchen scraps reduces insects and odors, and speeds up the composting process.” (We’ll get to the question of rodents in a moment.)

When adding materials, the bin should contain three parts “brown” carbon-rich materials — e.g. fall leaves, brown yard waste, straw, used paper towels, ripped up egg cartons, or paper bags — to one part “green” nitrogen-rich materials such as food waste, coffee grounds and grass clippings. Donovan added a cautionary note: “Many autumn leaves, including maple, are ideal for composting, but avoid oak leaves and pine needles, because they break down slowly and can be acidic.” (Acidic materials can be useful, though, for mulching plants like blueberries that love lower numbers on the pH scale.)

Saving fall leaves in a covered trash can or under a tarp makes it easy to add them to home compost bins year-round. Successful composting requires oxygen, and Donovan reminds composters to mix or turn the pile with a shovel or pitchfork. “This will speed up the process. You can also introduce helpful microorganisms to bins by adding a few large scoops of garden soil or finished compost. Add water as needed to keep the contents as damp as a wrung-out sponge.” Donovan said the compost is good to go for spreading on gardens and lawns when it resembles crumbly, dark brown or black, sweet-smelling soil.

In some neighborhoods, rats have been a problem in recent years. Greenfield residents and avid composters Glen Ayers and Mary Chicoine outsmarted rats by building a frame from materials left behind by a previous homeowner. Said Ayers: “I installed hefty wood posts and boards lined with heavy-duty quarter-inch hardware cloth. The lid is too heavy for a rat to lift, and all the ends of the hardware cloth overlap, leaving no gaps.” Ayers added that the cloth is very stiff, and that rats and mice cannot bend the wire mesh. It seems to do the trick: no interlopers have been spotted recently. “I think we’ve cut them off from a fresh food supply,” said Ayers. “We have plenty of produce and vegetables in our gardens which animals can eat whenever they want, but it seems like at least the compost feeding station is no longer a source of rodent chow.”

Fans of composting are intent on bringing more of you on board! For more information or to purchase composting tools, visit franklincountywastedistrict.org, call (413) 772-2438 or email info@franklincountywastedistrict.org.

Eveline MacDougall is the author of “Fiery Hope” and a musician, artist, and mom. Readers may contact her at eveline@amandlachorus.org.