All About Compost
As we know from the EPA’s Food Recovery Hierarchy, REDUCING, RECOVERING, and REUSING food are the highest priority actions to address wasted food. Find tools and tips for reducing food waste here. After reducing and reusing, the next step is recycling (or in this context, composting). This comprehensive resource provides the tips and tools you need to understand the what, why, and how of compost.
What is Compost?
Compost is a nutrient-rich, humus-like material that is formed when organic wastes break down in the presence of oxygen. Composting mimics the natural decomposition process of dead plants and animals. Through composting, decomposers such as bacteria and fungi break down decaying organic matter into a natural soil amendment. Composting is an ancient practice utilized in many cultures throughout human history as a way to sustainably manage waste, improve soil health, and promote new plant growth!
Why Compost?
Food makes up the largest percentage of municipal solid waste (MSW) sent to landfill in the U.S., accounting for approximately 24% of landfilled MSW. In the landfill, food and organics cannot decompose naturally because landfills are anaerobic environments (lacking oxygen). When organics break down anaerobically, methane - a greenhouse gas approximately 85 times more potent than CO2 - is produced. Diverting this organic waste from landfills to decompose aerobically in compost systems not only avoids those greenhouse gas emissions, but also produces a valuable and beneficial end-product - compost! Additionally, the compost industry creates over twice as many jobs as landfill/incineration. There are many economic, environmental, and social reasons to compost! (Read more here.)
Benefits of Compost
Compost releases nutrients slowly, over time to soil and plants - making it less susceptible to runoff and a longer-term solution than synthetic fertilizers.
Compost made from food scraps typically has a higher diversity of nutrients than commercially-made composts and fertilizers. In addition to nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, compost can contain a variety of micronutrients and trace minerals such as carbon, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, and more!
Compost improves soil structure by building organic matter. This helps soil retain more water and sediment (thereby reducing runoff, erosion, and water usage), as well as making the soil more tenable for plant roots.
Compost inoculates the soil with beneficial organisms (sort of like probiotics for the land!). This protects plants from pathogens and diseases, and reduces the need for synthetic pesticides. These microbes also sequester carbon!
Social benefits: According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, “Composting locally at the neighborhood or community-level yields many other benefits: improved local soils, more local jobs, greener spaces, enhanced food security and fewer food deserts, less truck traffic hauling garbage, and increased composting know-how and skills within the local workforce that is reinforced in the next generation. When composting is small-scale and locally based, community participation and education can flourish” (Platt, McSweeney, & Davis, 2014).
