Tons of eggshells are thrown out every day by families, restaurants, and food production companies, why not? Their harmless right? Although many may think that throwing away eggshells is completely harmless, eggshells take many years to decompose and attract vermin to landfills.

Most people don’t give a second thought to throwing away eggshells sense they are natural and are thought to decompose at a fast rate, but that isn’t the case. In an experiment conducted by Robert Pavlis, owner of Aspen Grove Gardens, eggshells were put underground and checked once a year to see how long it would take to decompose and in his studies he found the process took over three years.1 Sense eggshells take so long to decompose, they take up a lot of space in landfills which causes landfills to get too full. This is one of the few reasons we shouldn’t be throwing them away. Another is because of the smell that is produced and the cost of sending eggshells to landfills.

We all know that rotten egg smell, yet the majority of the people who throw eggs away don’t clean them beforehand. This causes a massive stink in landfills which both effects the landfills appearance as well as the areas around it. The stench from unwashed eggshells attracts all sorts of vermin to landfills, and also gets swept away by the wind to neighboring communities. In 2018, there were many complaints about the Rutherford County Landfill due to the smell of it causing people to feel sick.2 Due to the amount of space these shells take, the amount of time they take to decompose, and the rancid stink that unwashed eggs produce, landfill owners dislike having them and some companies and restaurants have to pay the landfill owners to take them in. Pankaj Pancholi, owner of Scroch Egg company, sayd they had to pay around $64,000 dollars a year for the eggshells to be taken away which was a lot of money to waste.3 Another company was paying over $100,000 for the same exact thing.4 Although the eggshells aren’t the only thing causing the horrible smells in landfills, it is a contributing factor to it and could easily be helped sense there are many different uses for eggshells at home.

Although eggshells seem useless after peeling or cracking an egg, eggshells are incredibly useful in gardens and are very high in calcium. There are so many different ways to use eggshells in the garden, sense eggshells are very high in calcium adding crushed up eggshells to your gardens soil is a great way to make the ground more fertile for your plants. You can also grind up the eggshells, put them in water and let it sit for a bit so that the water absorbs the nutrient from the shells, creating nutrient-rich water for your plants. Sprinkling eggshells around the plants and you’ll have a snail and slug repellant.5 Not only can eggshells be used to help in gardens, but they can also be eaten for extra calcium. All you have to do is wash them, boil them, and let them dry before grinding them into a fine powder and putting it any food you like. Not everyone had a garden, and not everyone is keen to the idea of eating eggshells, but there are always gardening clubs in and outside of schools.

If we simply reused eggshells in gardens or as additives to food instead of throwing them away there could be more space available in landfills, the stench from landfills could decrease greatly, and companies could stop paying for landfills to take their unwanted waste products.

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1.  Eggshells - Decomposition Study. (2018, August 18). 

2.  Lohuis, L. (2018, July 17). Stench lingers at Rutherford County landfill. 

3.  Shearman, S. (2016, June 30). Scotch egg company claims to have cracked problem of eggshell waste.

4.  Famous for Egg Waste. (n.d.). 

5.  Engel, H. (2018, December 17). What Plants Would Benefit From Crushed Eggshells?