Composting

When people think of composting, the first thing that comes to mind is most likely heaping piles of banana peels and rotting vegetables. The assumption isn’t completely inaccurate, but there’s beauty beneath all of the garbage.

Composting is a process that returns nutrients from organic materials back into the soil. The goal behind this is to reduce the amount of natural waste that ends up in our landfills. In the United States alone, nearly 300 hundred million tons of waste are produced per year. Although composting doesn’t diminish human consumption or eliminate trash, it does repurpose what has already entered the cycle. 

Jared Eliot said that “the soil is like a bank…a person who grows food in the soil without returning plant wastes and manure to it is like a person who repeatedly withdraws cash from a bank account without ever making a deposit”.

Cutting back greenhouse gas emissions is another environmental benefit that composting brings the table. If organic materials end up in landfills they can get trapped under other materials and not decompose properly. Large piles of trash cover the plant material and restrict oxygen causing the emission of methane gas, which is more potent than carbon dioxide. Keeping organic matter from landfills and recycling them back into the soil will also improve the quality of our carbon-storing plants.

Soil that includes composted materials is known by farmers, and rightly so, as “liquid gold”. The namesake comes from all the helpful nutrients and microorganisms found within the soil. This method can hold more moisture, requiring less irrigation than typical ground soil, thereby lowering the cost to grow healthy greenery. Since the compost acts as a natural fertilizer, harmful additives found in commercial brands can be avoided. 

Composting is something everyone can participate in. Putting coffee grounds, potato shavings, lawn clippings, any non-meat or dairy food product, or “green waste” into a container is a relatively simple task. The hardest part is turning those materials into compost by adding moisture and “brown waste” like leaves, sticks, and branches. With time and maintenance, these materials will decompose and form a versatile humus. The mature compost can be used as mulch, potting soil, lawn or garden beds fertilizer, fed to potted plants, or added to soil around trees.

If someone doesn’t have any use for the compost, there’s plenty of people who do. Getting involved can include sending organic waste to composting facilities, finding programs in the area for community composting, or if none exist, lobbying city councils to create one. When outsourcing compost, it can be kept in a compost keeper or in the freezer until pick-up/drop-off dates. 

Taking care of the earth means recycling the nutrients that it provides. Composting is one way to help reduce humanity’s carbon footprint, and it’s as easy as peeling a banana.