Plant Compost 5L

Benefits

Benefits of Composting:

1. “Around 820 million people in the world suffer from chronic hunger and more than 2 billion are malnourished, and this is even before the pandemic struck, the needed increase in food production will need to be achieved with the same or fewer inputs.”

Composting is a great way to recycle the organic waste we generate at home and reduces the waste stream. “Food scraps and garden waste combined make up a high percentage of what we throw away.”

“Not only is food waste a significant burden on the environment, but processing it is costly. Billions of dollars are being spent on waste management.” Composting at home allows us to divert some of that waste from landfills and turn it into something beneficial for our gardens.

2. Compost improves soil health and lessens erosion. It plays an important role in improving large-scale agricultural systems. It contains three primary nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. “It also includes traces of other essential elements like calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc.”

Instead of relying on synthetic fertilizers that contain harmful chemicals, composting offers an organic alternative.

3. Agriculture is a major consumer of water. Irrigation systems are effective, but are expensive and time-consuming for farmers to manage. Additionally, water used in agriculture is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain globally and is becoming a scarce source.

Research has shown the water-retaining capacities of soil increase with the addition of organic matter. By using compost to foster healthy soil, farmers do not have to use as much water and can still have higher yields compared with farming with degraded soil.

4. Typically, when organic matter decomposes, it undergoes “aerobic decomposition”, where microorganisms are broken down in the presence of oxygen.

“Because most solid waste infrastructures were designed around landfilling, only a very low percentage of food waste gets composted.” Consequently, compostable waste goes to a landfill and gets buried under massive amounts of other trash. Trapped under many layers of trash, it ends up undergoing “anaerobic decomposition” where there is lack of oxygen gas, therefore biogas is created as a by-product.

Biogas is roughly 50 % methane and 50 % carbon dioxide. Given equal amounts of methane and carbon dioxide, methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere more efficiently than carbon dioxide.

“Although most modern landfills have methane capture systems, these do not capture all the gas, which leads to a greenhouse effect.” To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the risk of pollution, organic waste can be removed to be used in composting.

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