Compost Magic: The Many Benefits Of Composting
Living a sustainable life is a holistic exercise.
It’s a journey dotted with incremental improvements (and failures, we’ve had our fair share!) along the way.
Step by step, considering all aspects of our lifestyle. From our habits at home to the kinds of products and businesses we choose to support.
And, when it comes to our own waste management, there’s room for improvement.
City-based humans globally produced a staggering 1.3 billion tons of waste a decade ago. Much of it went into landfills, despite 25-50% being what those in the know refer to as “organic”, or “waste of biological origin”.
In this context, “organic” just means anything that was once living (as opposed to organically farmed products) and includes paper, cardboard, food scraps, garden trimmings, and fecal matter (e.g. dog poop).
So…what’s the big deal with organic matter going to landfill?
Well, composting is actually a much better means of dealing with organic matter than chucking it in landfill.
Let’s take a closer look at the upside.
Composting – Breaking It Down:
Composting is the process of biodegradation, or breaking down, and repurposing of organic waste. In other words, composting is nature’s way of recycling natural waste.
The process works like this: microorganisms, worms, snails, insects, and fungi break down organic waste and turn it into a useful material that gets fed back into the earth (more on that below) – it’s like the circle of life (watch here for a ~1 minute lesson refresh from The Lion King).
For a compost bin / pile to be successfully turned into this useful material, it needs three basic “ingredients” – imagine this processes imitating a forest floor where you’d need a range of inputs or ingredients to make the ground fertile (with heaps of nutrients and minerals) for trees and plants to grow from:
- Browns: This consists of dead plant matter (i.e. leaves) and wood based waste (i.e. twigs, paper, cardboard). These are carbon rich materials.
- Greens: This consists of live plant material (grass trimmings, vegetable waste, fruit cores, coffee grounds, egg shell, and other kitchen scraps). These are nitrogen rich materials.
- Water: Most organic materials will generate their own moisture as they break down, but sometimes a little water must be added to achieve the desired damp sponge consistency, especially in hot climates.
Are you hooked?
If not (and if somehow that Lion King reminder didn’t get you there), here’s a list of the benefits of composting to give you some circle of life inspo:
QUICK LINKS FOR THE BENEFITS OF COMPOSTING AT HOME
- Waste management & reduction
- Soil and agricultural enhancement
- Natural pesticide and fertilizer
- Reduction of greenhouse gases
- Hazardous waste remediation
1. COMPOSTING WASTE MANAGEMENT AND REDUCTION
The biggest benefit of composting is the obvious one: creating an environmentally friendly alternative to landfill disposal.
According to an EPA study on Municipal Solid Waste, national waste consists of 26.5% paper product, 7.5% wood, 7.6% yard trimmings, and 16.4% food scraps.
Added together, that’s 57.8% of total waste that could be used for composting! Imagine reducing landfill waste by over 50%! This is not only good for the environment, it makes financial sense too.
Take New York City for example – in response to its nearly $400 million dollar annual trash disposal cost, it began implementing a citywide composting program.
When former Mayor Michael Bloomberg first envisioned the plan in 2013, officials estimated the city could save $100 million of that by composting the one-third of waste formerly shipped to landfills.
Landfills are a financial drain on cities and consequently on taxpayers too. In his 2013 State of the City address, Bloomberg stated, “We bury 1.2 million tons of food waste in landfills every year at a cost of $80 per ton.”
If that doesn’t make sense to you, that’s good because it shouldn’t.
2. SOIL AND AGRICULTURAL ENHANCEMENT
Composting not only keeps waste out of landfills, but re-purposes it into material that improves the structure of existing soil (think back to that forest floor analogy).
When mature, compost becomes a nutrient rich material called “humus”, capable of amending formerly depleted soil by replenishing it with carbon and important plant growth nutrients like phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen, and neutralizing soil pH levels, it makes it way more hospitable to a wider variety of plants.
Physically, it creates a solid soil surface (or tilth) to prevent soil erosion.
That means it also improves the workability of tricky soil types, adding water retention to fast-draining sandy soils, friability to firm, unworkable soil, and drainage to clay-based soils.
This makes it especially useful in areas of reforestation and environmental restoration. It can even help regulate soil temperature, extending the growing season, and increasing moisture retention, so you can save time and money on watering.
On a wider agricultural scale, this promotes higher crop yields.
3. NATURAL PESTICIDE AND FERTILIZER
Compost is rich in bacteria and fungi that prevent insect infestation and suppress weed growth so you can forget about expensive pesticides and weed killers.
Additionally, because the soil is so rich in nutrients, it simultaneously reduces the need for chemical fertilizers.
4. REDUCTION OF GREENHOUSE GASES
You still might be asking, “Okay, but aren’t landfills just giant compost piles?”
Yes, BUT in a landfill the mixture of organic and non-organic material ruins the composting process and releases methane gas, or the dreaded “greenhouse gas”.
Composting at home reduces your carbon footprint by storing it in the soil, which also improves the soil quality.
Composting improves the overall carbon cycle of the earth by sequestering carbon (even so far as to become a carbon sink if utilized on a larger, agricultural scale) and managing overall atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
For a complete explanation of this process, check out this US Composting Council Fact Sheet.
5. HAZARDOUS WASTE REMEDIATION
This is one of the most impressive composting facts.
Compost bioremediation can, according to the EPA, be used to “restore contaminated soils, manage stormwater, control odors, and degrade volatile organic compounds” where “agricultural effluents, industrial residues, and industrial accidents” have contaminated surface waters, soils, streams and reservoirs.
Basically it can be used to clean up toxic spills!
Hopefully you don’t come across anything like this in your day to day but if you’re interested, you can read more on this from the EPA here.
COMPOSTING IS PICKING UP, TRENDING EVEN…
Schools, mobile home dwellers, even entire municipalities are turning to composting as alternative waste disposal. In 2012, Portland implemented a curbside composting project, which, after six months, resulted in 44% less residential trash.
San Francisco, Seattle, and dozens of others are following suit.
As of 2015, composting programs served 3.8 million U.S. households, and other countries around the world are building up their composting programs.
While progress is slow, people are catching on to composting.
Between 2013 and 2015, the U.S. went from composting 5% of food waste (about 1.84 million tons) to 5.3% (about 2.1 million tons). That averages to 0.4 pounds per person per day.
For in-depth state-by-state breakdowns of solid waste generation and recycling, check out the EPA’s Advancing Sustainable Materials Management Fact Sheet.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE BENEFITS OF COMPOSTING AT HOME
So next time you take out trash, take a closer look: how much of it can be composted?
Composting is simple and cost effective, requiring a receptacle and the waste that you’re already producing.
There are different types and methods, depending on what best suits your lifestyle.
Our advice?
Start by the learning the basics: what is compostable versus what’s not compostable, how to do apartment composting if you live in a high rise and what indoor compost bins are best suited.
In no time you’ll be keeping scraps of worm food and researching how to use worm tea.
You can sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date with more guides documenting our own composting journey.
We’re more than happy to fuel your fermenting food fever! Compost on!
