Food System Factoids: Potential GHG reduction for regionally-directed food purchasing

Food System Factoids: Potential GHG reduction for regionally-directed food purchasing

Greenhouse Gases……Microbes, Plants, Microbial Fertilizers?

What’s in the soil anyway?
A lot more then you may have ever imagined……..and it’s pretty exciting. Maybe you think it really isn’t a big deal and not so very important. Tell that to the Irish who experienced the Great Famine (Irish: An Gorta Mór or An Drochshaol, lit: The Bad Life). Something in the ground literally changed our history, reduced the population of Ireland by more then 25%, and resulted in a massive exodus to the US. If you think the late blight, the fungus responsible for that disaster is long gone never to be seen again…..you are wrong.

http://whyfiles.org/128potato_blight/

Plants and crops are essential for our well being and for our survival. They could do very well if we were not here, but we can not get along without them. Microbes and plants go together. One thing for sure ………is that plants and microbes depend one upon the other.

There’s a party going on and we’d like to get involved………..but the important party guests are the microbes and plants. They’ve been enjoying each other’s company for a very long time. Take one or the other out of the room and the party is over.

Once in awhile uninvited guests crash the party and cause a lot of problems. The “bad” microbes, like the example of the late blight fungus that caused the potato famine, get in the door……. and they then can really make a mess. And it can cause us a lot of trouble. We’ve got to figure out how to keep the “bad” guys out. We want to prevent unwelcome guests from spoiling the party. Maybe you want to grab the fumigant and give them a little blast. Resist that urge.

There is hope. We may one day come to realize that the “chemical” solution is non-sustainable. New thoughts are evolving. It is refreshing and very encouraging to note that those who really have been at the front line have come to realize that you’ve got to adopt a strategy of making it more difficult for pathogens (bad microbes) to get started.

Dr. Elaine Ingham, a soil microbiologist and founder of Soil Foodweb Inc, has nicely described the standard practices that result in sick soils and sick crops.

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/soilborne.html

Soil-borne diseases result from a reduction of biodiversity of soil organisms (microbes). Restoring beneficial organisms that attack, repel, or otherwise antagonize disease-causing pathogens will render a soil disease-suppressive. Plants growing in disease-suppressive soil resist diseases much better than in soils low in biological diversity.

Traditional strategies at fighting plant disease involve the use of chemical fumigants, fungicides, and toxins targeting the pathogen after the pathogen’s effects were apparent. Or in many cases, the agents were used to suppress or prevent the pathogen’s emergence with a belief that higher crop yields or healthier plants were then assured. Chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fumigants, and fungicides are too broadly damaging. They change the environment and damage the soil. We’ve got to change our strategy if we want to enjoy the party.

We’re talking about microbes today. The gases in our atmosphere, the microbes, and the plants are all interdependent in some very interesting and surprising ways. And we need to understand how changes in one have effects on the other. The soil microbes are so important.


Microbes:
The simple definition of a microbe (short for micro-organism) is any living thing that spends its life generally in a form so small that it is only visible under a microscope. As it turns out, the number of organisms that meet that definition is very large. The organisms may be further classified into groups called bacteria, or fungi, etc. We don’t need to get overly technical in classifying the organisms for our purpose of understanding how they are so relevant and important. They are exceedingly numerous and quite diverse. They represent most of the life forms populating the planet.

http://www.edu.pe.ca/southernkings/microintro.htm

Some microbes are pathogenic………that is to say they may be responsible for causing certain diseases. There are human, animal, and plant pathogens. But most microbes are non-pathogenic and they are literally found everywhere. A teaspoon of soil may easily be populated with nearly 1 billion living microbes and a cup of soil contains many more microbes in number then humans inhabiting the planet. A teaspoon of healthy soil will easily contain 10,000 or more bacterial species (types of organisms), 5,000 types of fungi, and 10,000 types of protozoa (organisms capable of moving about in the soil).

Most of the microbes in the world do a lot of good………..and you don’t want to destroy them because they assist plants promoting growth, digest and remove “dead” things eliminating nutrient material that could have supported the growth of pathogenic microbes, and in the process frequently produce valuable substances like antibiotics and vitamins that humans have been able to use effectively in treating diseases and staying healthy.

Different Microbes…..produce different gases:

Most of the microbes on the planet are very specialized. They may also be very sensitive to the local environment multiplying rapidly and thriving when conditions are just right and perishing when the conditions are ever so slightly changed. Bacteria are able to multiply very rapidly when there is a sufficient food source to feed upon and under ideal conditions can easily double their populations every 20 minutes.

The evolutionary pressures have resulted in these niches where one species survives whilst the other perishes. One of the important conditional factors that will impact which microbes survive has to do with the level of oxygen available. We’ve already talked about the process of composting when the conditions are anaerobic (low or no oxygen present) or aerobic (oxygen present).

http://bokashicycle.blogspot.com/2008/12/greenhouse-gaseswormeries-compost-and.html

We know either condition is bad if this is done by composting because gases are produced that escape into the atmosphere resulting in the heating up of the planet.

Advocates of composting like to think it is “green” to compost, but a careful analysis shows clearly it is unhealthy for the planet. Composting is a non-sustainable way of dealing with organic waste. Under anaerobic conditions we find a lot of methane, nitrous oxide, hydrogen, and ammonia gases are formed polluting the planet. That is why we’ve got to get that waste out of the landfills. Compost that is too wet decomposes anaerobically.

Aerobic composting, the preferred method done industrially diminishes the amount of methane and other noxious gases escaping into the atmosphere in exchange for a lot of oxidized carbon in the form of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and heat being put into the atmosphere. Microbes are involved in both anaerobic and aerobic composting.

Why do microbes produce gases of one kind when oxygen levels are low and of another kind when oxygen levels are normal (higher)? It’s because a different group of microbes are involved when the conditions of composting are altered.

We’ve talked about oxygen and its effect on microbes and already in an earlier discussion about carbon to nitrogen ratios and how they need to be correct to support microbial growth.

When the ratio of carbon to nitrogen is changed, the microbes change too. And we noted that microbes can not do their thing if the water content is off. The humidity must be controlled to get efficient oxidation under aerobic conditions. All of these seemingly small changes account for much of the wide variations in the compost end product.

http://bokashicycle.blogspot.com/2008/12/naked-truthabout-compost.html

So why don’t we anaerobically digest waste material that can then be converted to natural gas (methane)? We could use that gas to burn off and make electricity or run cars…right? That is exactly what many city planners and municipalities are planning to do. This is not a good idea.

The planners know that the material can be processed to produce gas that can be used as a fuel to make electricity. This process has been studied and advocated by many who believe it will convert waste to power. You can read about it and see how they plan to make the conversion (Biogas production using anaerobic digestion).

http://www.anaerobic-digestion.com/html/introduction-to-anaerobic-dige.html

It has long been recognized that anaerobic fermentation at near neutral pH (where the acidity of sludge is neutral like the water in your faucet) is fast and more efficient then composting. But it is not simple because the system requires a lot of attention to keep the conditions just right so that the proper microbes that produce methane are supported.

http://water.me.vccs.edu/courses/ENV108/anaerobic.htm

They can do it and fully intend to have you pay for it to be done. This is a Landfill gas plan to generate an alternate source of energy. The microbes involved in this process produce other gases too. And these other toxins mixed in with the methane that can not be easily separated from the methane give off noxious toxins when they are burned polluting our air and planet. Because the waste feeding microbes is varied and inconsistent, the end product varies too.

Mike Ewall’s analysis is well worth a read. "Landfill gas" is not the same thing as "natural gas" or "methane." They are three separate terms which mean different things. They should not be used interchangeably. The term "landfill methane" is deceiving as it's usually used to imply that landfill gas is simply methane.

http://www.energyjustice.net/lfg/


Bokashicycle Fermentation…produces virtually no gases:

We’ve been talking about microbes, and how they are selected out by the conditions in the process. How can it be that anaerobic fermentation of organic waste with bokashi culture mix results in no measurable gases? We know already that anaerobic fermentation of organic waste in a landfill or in a biogas digester results in methane and other noxious gases being produced.

There are two factors that make it different. First, unlike the landfill or bio-digester where microbes are allowed to dominate the process by the conditions of fermentation, in bokashicycle fermentation a specific set of microbes is added to the organic waste. These pre-formed cultures rapidly take over the degrading process because they are dominant in numbers from the beginning of the process. It would be unlikely they could dominate the organic waste had they not been added early in the fermentation process.

The second factor has to do with the acidity. It turns out that few microbes can survive when the acidity is high. In bokashicycle fermentation the lactobacilli microbes produce acid as they work sustaining a relatively acidic environment that will inhibit competitors that might produce gases. The mix of microbes in the bokashicycle culture work symbiotically to break down proteins, plant cells, and other materials commonly found in organic waste.

Carbon is retained in its non-oxidized state as are the nitrogen products of fermentation and when these products are then placed in the ground, the soil microbes take over.

In our next blog, we will discuss in more detail how the soil microbes intimately convert the fermented products to nutrients plants can rapidly absorb.

Can Bokashi be used for animal manure?

Can this system be used for animal manure? My cats use a litter called sweet wheat and I have been composting it with leaves and other organic material for use strictly in inedible flower beds. This has worked in conventional big plastic compost bins with the usual drawbacks of occasional odors and the big issue of rat infestation. So I would love to resolve these problems particularly since I live in an urban location. I am also very concerned that every thing I purchase is made of recycled material and is recyclable or I would rather not buy it. Does your product and all of it's packaging meet this criteria? Thank you for your time and good works and let me know if you have small scale biodigester plans or ideas. Thank you, Email question from Anonymous

Greenhouse Gases……Wormeries, Compost, and Bio-Char…Oh My!

Emerald City - Wikipedia

Things aren’t always as they appear………or as we are told. Like the scarecrow, the tin man, and the cowardly lion, we need good ideas, our heart, and courage to do what is right. We are told that the planet is heating up, that frightening things are happening (global warming) and like Dorothy, Toto and her companions we are not too happy to hear about these problems.

The mighty Wizard of Oz (scientists) advise us to get the broom. We’ve got to face the wicked witch of the east and we’ve got to get rid of her creepy flying monkeys (green house gases). We are supposed to find the answers and get back to the mighty Wizard hoping then he will show us how we get back to Kansas.

Dorothy and her dog Toto left the farm to find “a better place somewhere over the rainbow” only to in the end realize that the answers had always been in their own back yard.

Like Dorothy and her companions, others are taking the yellow brick road to the Emerald City seeking answers hoping the mighty Wizard of Oz will give them good advice.

Leaders around the country look to Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco for those answers. They want to know what to do with the solid waste, kitchen scraps, and organic solids that we all agree should no longer be placed in the landfills.


The Naked Truth About Compost


Green House Gases

What are the greenhouse gases anyway? We’ve heard a lot about them but perhaps you too have wondered a lot about them and why some gases are more damaging than others.

It’s really pretty simple and you don’t need an advanced degree or a lot of fancy calculations to get your arms around the problem. Simply put, anything in the atmosphere (over and above the surface of the earth) can absorb the sun’s energy, become heated, and then irradiate or send that energy back to the surface.

If we had no atmosphere a great deal of energy from the sun striking the planet would be deflected and sent back off into space. The surface of the earth would be significantly cooler. It is warmer here because the gases trap heat. Most of the things in the air are gases…….like water vapor, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Some of these gases escape the planet and take the heat they have absorbed with them and that has an effect of actually cooling down the planet. Fortunately for us, we are not loosing a lot of gas.

Gases formed at the surface going back into the atmosphere will heat up and blanket the earth sending heat back to the surface, and this over time results in a kind of steady state temperature for the planet. Some gases are more efficient at capturing the sun’s energy. When they form and escape into the atmosphere; they have a greater effect on heating. Other gases that are less efficient at capturing solar energy do little to heat the planet.

So you can already appreciate that we’ve got to think about the amount of gas being put into the atmosphere and how efficient it is at trapping the sun’s heat to get a handle on how bad the problem might get if we don’t change our habits. A small amount of a very efficient heat trapping gas could be far more devastating for the planet then large amounts of a relatively weak heat trapping gas.

Here’s the good news………..we need our atmosphere and these gases to get the temperature high enough to support life as we know it. The oxygen, water vapor, carbon dioxide and other gases all contribute to heating up the surface because they catch the heat from the sun on the way to the surface or as it is deflected off the surface distributing and blanketing the earth with a kind of insulation that keeps the temperature about 33 degrees Celsius warmer then it would be without these gases.

University of Michigan Greenhouse Gases Article

Some gases, like methane when released into the atmosphere over time react to form other gases (they are oxidized and broken down) and as you can imagine the chemistry can get complicated. But the point is that even though the life time of the gas in the atmosphere may vary and change with time, the heat absorbing and re-distributing heat properties of the gases are all contributing to a net gain in planetary temperature. If we were truly in a steady state where gases going into the atmosphere and leaving the atmosphere were fixed and equal, there would be no further net heating of the planet. But that is not a fact.

As it turns out the global warming potential of methane is about 21 times greater then the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. This is just another way of saying that a molecule of methane (and all of its subsequent known oxidized products) will in time be 21 times more effective then carbon dioxide at trapping heat.

Nitrous oxide, a gas produced by earthworms, also found in poorly managed compost piles, is 310 times more potent then carbon dioxide.

Composting Council.org Greenhouse Mitigation

Certain trace gases like fluorocarbons used industrially are more then 1000 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat and they are no longer being used because they so heavily pollute the atmosphere.

We all know now that methane and carbon dioxide are great contributors to planetary heating and it really doesn’t matter rather you think it is man-made or natural causes we don’t fully appreciate that explain the rise in carbon dioxide levels that have been widely observed. More polluting gases are only going to make things worse.

When carbonized products are oxidized, carbon dioxide is produced. So fuel used in transporting or processing materials, either goods or waste material will pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. Of course we’d like people to consume less and produce less waste so we don’t have to transport so much waste to the landfill. And we will ask them to take the organic waste out of the garbage so it can be processed more efficiently. We don’t want that methane and carbon dioxide coming out of the landfill and we need more space to bury the non-organic waste.

Seattle to require table scrap collection in April 2009

We’ve already made the point that composting is not the answer and is indeed contributing significantly to the global warming problem. We can anticipate that the problem will get much worse if more people adopt that policy. Academics who have taken a closer look at how people compost at home have warned us more then 2 years ago that these practices contribute greatly to global warming.

Check out this recycle article

Professor Jan Gronow of London's Imperial College has pointed out that "Emissions from home composting and poorly-run composting operations may contribute significant amounts of methane because75% of people's home composting bins are anaerobic because they do not aerate them." The concern was backed up by the head of the waste and energy research group at the University of Brighton, Dr Marie Harder, who asked: "Has anybody stopped to ask whether home composting is good for the environment?"
Over 34% of British households participate in home composting schemes according to the government, which has just completed an initiative handing out one million composting bins via the Waste and Resources Action Program.

Defra's (the British Government’s equivalent of our USDA’s) long-term waste strategy is currently being reviewed, with a new strategy expected by the end of the year. But Prof Gronow, who was formerly the Environment Agency's head of waste and remediation science, believes the government was "jumping on the climate change bandwagon" to reach European landfill targets rather than thinking about the real environmental impacts of different recycling and composting processes.

A little house keeping…………..

So some of you who think composting is good may want to cite a number of reports where experts have made the claim that in well managed compost operations the contributions to greenhouse gases are reduced. For example Californians Against Waste assert that composting is a greenhouse gas mitigation measure.

A Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Measure by Californians Against Waste

And there are primers for Compost Producers that attempt to rigorously prove that composting is beneficial and results in a reduction in GHG emissions.

http://www.compostingcouncil.org/download.php?r=15&f=34b7cbc44f552a8d44606effb3792e07.pdf

Here it is very important to look at the assumptions that are made. We’ve got to question those assumptions to determine if they are truly valid and use a little common sense.

Although they acknowledge an inventory of GHG must be done to determine if policies are truly going to make a difference, the assumptions regarding what is happening when organic discards are processed are flawed.

Organic discards that are high in nitrogen and carbon content (food scraps, grass clippings, etc.) placed in the landfills decompose to produce methane and nitrous oxides. They pollute badly………..so we want them out of the landfills. We all agree.

It is argued that the value of compost mitigation (to reduce global heating) can be determined by answers to these questions.

• What would have happened to the feedstock (scraps, clippings, etc.) had they not been composted?
• How is the compost operation run?
• What happens to the compost?

The negative impacts are said to be from emissions from diesel powered processing equipment used to handle and process feedstock that is being composted.

Good accounting practices mean you have to account for the cash coming in and going out. The rate of carbon dioxide produced does not necessarily equal the rate of carbon dioxide taken back out of the atmosphere by plants. That assumption was made in the mitigation analysis.

The carbon dioxide naturally produced by decaying plants is called biogenic carbon dioxide. The net balance will be close to zero if there is no polluting program in place. One assumption about composting that can lead to a great miscalculation is the assumption that the rate of carbon dioxide produced during compost operations equals the rate of removal from the atmosphere by plants that are alive and growing.

As more and more agricultural products are produced to feed the growing world population, the mass of organic waste has escalated. It is simply unreasonable to assume that the rate of aerated waste material allowed to decompose (by composting) will produce no more carbon dioxide then can be taken up by plants.

Although it might well be reasoned that because methane and nitrous oxide are far more heat producing than carbon dioxide alone, and neither of these gases are produced in well run compost operations, it does not prove that composting is the best policy. There are alternative practices that produce no polluting gases.

www.bokashicycle.com

It has also been argued that composting puts more carbon into the soil (a form of sequestration). If you can put the carbon into the soil so less and less is available to oxidize and produce carbon dioxide, then over time the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has to drop……….right? This again is not necessarily true. It depends on the relative rates for producing carbon dioxide and sequestrating the carbon. If you are producing more and more carbon waste (more food scraps) and composting them, yes it is true more and more carbon is going into the soil, but you are also putting more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Wormeries?

Some of you are certainly familiar with wormeries and one might be tempted to believe these are going to help us out of this problem. Although the amount of worm composting is very small and the amount of landfill is large, the worms may not be as environmentally friendly as gardeners who use them have hoped for.

A lot of people love worms and think they do no harm. However, it is now clear that large commercial worm composting plants may be comparable to the global warming potential of landfill sites of the same scale.

Worms may add to may add to greenhouse gases

Scientists in Germany have demonstrated that one third of the nitrous oxide emissions coming from the soil are associated with worms. Although worms are very efficient at breaking down kitchen scraps and other organic materials, they emit nitrous oxide in the process of digesting these materials which as noted is 300 times as effective as carbon dioxide in trapping heat.

Bio-Char?
What about that idea of trapping carbon in the soil? Thousands of years ago the natives along the Amazon basin discovered a method of farming that until recently was not fully appreciated as a method of reducing the greenhouse gas effects. They were able to transform some of the most infertile soils into the most productive of soils that remains today even 500 years after they are gone rich in organic matter and nutrients.

The Terra preta, as it is known, was produced by a slash-and-char policy. The indigenous people like others in many parts of the world did a slash and burn to clear and prepare the land for crops, but instead of letting the fire burn openly and rapidly, they covered the lit fires with soil and straw to let it smolder. They reduced the amount of oxygen available for combustion.

http://www.garyjones.org/mt/archives/000273.html

The smoldering process puts about 50% of the carbon mass back into the soil where it is then available for plants and microbes in the soil. It turns out that microbes and plants symbiotically thrive off of the carbonaceous resins that are produced. The microbes release enzymes that are involved in freeing trapped minerals, ions and nutrients fixed in the charred mass that are then delivered to the plant root hairs. The plants secrete nutrients in return that are used by the microbes.

Because the oxygen levels were reduced in the process of decomposing the organic matter (in this case by slash-and-char), less carbon was released into the air as carbon dioxide. Carbon was put into the ground (sequestrated) and made unavailable for release into the atmosphere.

The Japanese government approved the use of charcoal as a land management practice in 1990 and we are certain much more work in this area is in process.

The more we examine the facts the more we realize that the processing of the carbon waste and the biomass that is less polluting occurs when oxygen levels are reduced. Although it is true that anaerobic decomposition in the landfill is polluting, this is because of the type of organisms that are allowed to grow and interact that trigger the release of methane and other polluting gases. An anaerobic fermentation process with the right kinds of microbes gets around this problem and most importantly produces no polluting gases. It is also far more efficient and faster then composting.

In the classic 1939 American musical-fantasy film, The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy and her companions returned to Emerald City, her dog, Toto inadvertently exposes the great and powerful wizard as a fraud. They find an ordinary man hiding behind a curtain operating a giant console which contains a group of buttons and levers and are of course outraged at his deception. But the wizard solves their problems through common sense and a little double talk, rather than magic. He explains that they already had what they had been searching for all along and only needed things such as medals and diplomas to confirm that they were qualified to find the solutions to their problems.

They found in the Emerald city the answer they were hoping to get……….and it was surprising to discover it was right at home………..in the back yard. We’ll talk more about microbes and anaerobic fermentation in the next blog.

The Naked Truth…..about COMPOST!

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes)

There, I just blurted it out……….there is something untruthful, something not being said about compost.

Understanding and committing to practices that are truly sustainable takes courage, involves change, requires forethought and action but gives in return treasures for the effort. At bokashicycle.com we are committed to educating those who really want to know the facts, and believe they will then with knowledge and good science make the planet a better place.

What I have to say today will go against a popular belief so strongly imbedded and advocated by so many that it is certain to engender retorts and denials. But one of the great thrills in science is seeing things as they really are……seeing the truth, like the child who told the truth about the Emperor’s New Clothes in Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 tale of the swindlers. The weavers, had declared they could manufacture the finest cloth to be imagined with colors and patterns that were not only exceptionally beautiful, but most importantly, the clothes possessed the wonderful quality of being invisible to any man who was unfit for his office or unpardonably stupid.

So we are led to believe that an important part of recycling and keeping the planet “green” is making and using compost. We are increasingly being told that we’ve got to get the solid waste out of the landfill, that composting is good, that we should recycle our kitchen scraps, lawn clippings, etc. by composting them, and that compost is good for the soil and plants because it restores naturally what was missing. Plants are supposed to grow better when we use compost.

City and county planners are diverting more and more solid waste to tracks of land where compost is produced and then sold back to the public for garden use. Farmers frequently advocate composting and the use of animal manure to enrich the soil so they can obtain higher yields. A great compost industry has evolved. Giant earth moving machines, mixers, grinders, and trucks are used to move and manage the piles of “decomposing” organic matter that will in time be called “compost”.

Gardeners are coached and advised to use compost, to recycle their garden waste materials, and sold tumblers, bins, etc. designed to speed up the decomposition of organic matter so that the product can be used again and again in the garden.

What’s wrong with this picture? A lot. It’s plain to see we are headed in the wrong direction advocating compost as a sustainable process and it is certainly harming not helping the planet.

So what is compost anyway? Some people will say it is a dark, crumbly, and earthy-smelling form of decomposing organic matter, but it is perhaps better defined as a stable humus material. I like the Virginia Tech bulletin “Compost: What Is It and What's It To You” pithy way of stating what it is.

(http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/compost/452-231/452-231.html)

You can’t actually define it because no one knows exactly what it is. We can however say a lot about the process. When you purchase or make your compost you are getting something “earthy” at the end of the process but no two batches are ever going to be the same.

The process is well known. You have to collect the organic material and put it in a pile. The decomposition occurs because the naturally occurring microbes in the pile are working hard to consume the mass. They do this by oxidizing the plant material rendering in the end if all goes well a mass of humus.

There are many different types of microbes involved in the process all working together and an important part of the process is keeping the conditions in the pile right so that all of the essential microbes and fungi digesting material are healthy. During the process, because of the oxidation, the pile heats up. The heat is important because if the pile is too cold, the microbes won’t survive or the process will be too slow. But if the pile heats up too much, the microbes will die and then you have only a dead heap of partially decomposed organic matter.

As the decomposition commences, a lot of carbon dioxide gas and water vapor is produced and because of the heat in the pile, the gases are driven into the atmosphere. The pile begins to collapse upon itself as the center of the pile decomposes. This results in a substantial drop in the amount of oxygen that is needed to oxidize material. The microbes can not survive when the oxygen level drops too low but other microbes that thrive in low oxygen environments will begin to flourish.

The anaerobic (low oxygen loving) microbes take over and produce noxious gases including ammonia, nitrous oxide, methane, and hydrogen sulfide and many other noxious materials. Because of the heat, these gases are also driven into the atmosphere. The loss of nitrogen in the form of ammonia means in the end the compost nitrogen content is reduced. This is the process of putrefaction and it accounts for the offensive pile odors frequently observed when material is allowed to rot. That’s not good.

Anyone who ever tried to manage a compost pile will tell you it is a little tricky. It is almost impossible to maintain the perfect conditions to get a consistent product. You’ve got to make a pile big enough to get the temperature up to 110 – 150 F, assuming you have a proper mix of microbes. You’ve got to turn it and mix it adequately to keep the oxygen levels up to support the oxidation and you’ve got to add enough water to keep the humidity between 50 and 60%. If you turn it too soon, it will cool too fast. You have to add more water as it dries out to keep the organisms working (wasting water).

We’re not done yet. The microbes are pretty fussy……some need organic matter high in carbon content whilst others need organic matter rich in nitrogen. You’ve got to support these requirements or the pile won’t decompose in the manner you’d like. It turns out you’ve got to have a proper balance of carbon to nitrogen to make the pile work (C: N ratio about 30:1). People usually define carbon as “brown stuff” and nitrogen as “green stuff”……so you mix brown and green materials to try to get the ratio correct.

I think you’ve got the picture and it is kind of ugly. It’s very hard to control this process and virtually impossible to keep it going smoothly all along the way. You just can’t mix the pile and keep the temperature, humidity, C: N ratios, and oxygen levels etc. all where they need to be to get a consistent product. When it is done industrially, a lot of energy consuming devices are used to make it better. Temperature sensors, blowers, heaters, sprayers, oxygenators, earth movers, etc. are employed. A lot of labor and energy is consumed to produce a product. It can take easily 6 months from the beginning to the end of the process to have a stable and cured pile of compost.

In the end the humus produced, because of the heat, etc. has been sterilized. The natural microbes that normally inhabit the soil are no longer present. The natural microbes in the soil are intimately involved in assisting plants fix nitrogen and provide many nutrients that plants can readily assimilate. A lot of nitrogen was lost in the decomposition (taken out of the product as ammonia and nitrogen oxide gases and dispersed into the atmosphere). The oxidation of the organic matter results in tons of carbon dioxide and water vapor going into the atmosphere. Have you ever witnessed a steaming pile in the cool morning air?

Is it natural? People frequently like to say composting is natural “natures way of breaking down the organic matter”. Nothing could be further from the truth. When did you ever see mounds of material piled up and rotting in nature? Men recognized that you could accelerate the oxidation and breakdown by gathering and piling material in masses that are properly aerated and humidified.

In nature material is far more slowly broken down. When the leaves and debris do pile up and become matted down by rain and water, the oxygen is excluded and anaerobic processes take over. Most of the decomposition is occurring at ambient temperatures. Because no one is turning material to get the oxygen levels back to surface conditions, the interior processes resulting in decomposition are anaerobic (at very low oxygen levels). Have you every witnessed leaves as they naturally rot? They form a soggy mass on the ground in the fall and by winter’s end have completely disappeared.

The process of composting is not nature’s way but man’s way of rotting material. It is polluting the planet. We are by composting releasing water vapor, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and numerous other gases into the atmosphere. We are releasing a lot of heat that would not have been produced naturally. If we encourage people to compost, promote composting as an environmentally sound solution, and want to believe it is a sustainable practice that will be good for the planet, we are only fooling ourselves.

Like the child who saw the emperor’s suit for what it was, those who want real sustainability will acknowledge there has to be a better way. And there is. We’ll talk more about green house gases, microbes, and anaerobic fermentation in the future.

Seattle to require table-scrap recycling at homes in 2009

Good Morning!

We're talking about TRASH! That's right, about the scraps and food that end up in your trash can and then in the landfills near and around cities. The people involved in handling your scraps refer to this kind of trash as SWM (solid waste material).

Just south of Seattle along the I-5 corridor there is a landfill adjacent to the busy freeway that is clearly visible to commuters as they commute to and from work. A few years ago the residents who live in the sprawling new home developments near the covered landfill and commuters along the freeway witnessed a spectacular event.......smoke and fire billowing out of the topped over landfill where grass had been planted. At great expense to property owners and tax payers the city and county engineers had to rework the landfill burying pipes to collect and safely handle what is naturally produced when garbage is buried...........methane gas. Pockets of gas form and find there way to the surface where they are easily ignited when garbage is buried and allowed to decompose.

Fires in landfills are very common and numerous other gases from the solid waste are fouling the atmosphere. We'll talk more about these greenhouse gases later, but it is obvious to anyone, just common sense that you can't keep putting scraps in the landfill. What to do?

Approximately 30% of the volume of material heading to the landfill is organic material, the solid waste left over from food scraps. We just don't have enough places to bury it. If you keep turning the trash, exposing it to oxygen while it is rotting (decomposing) you can minimize the risk of methane production but that requires a lot of machinery, labor, and energy. It is a non-sustainable solution.

City planners and engineers are trying hard to find a solution........and they have a plan for you. They want you to get involved. It's going to happen everywhere and it's happening right now. In Seattle all single family homes must sign up for table-scrap recycling in 2009. (Sharon Pian Chan's Seattle Times report published in July 2007) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003792176_webrecycling16m.html

Residents will have to pay for the service. Starting in April 2009 in Seattle, you will have to buy special containers that will then be placed at the curbside. You will have to sort your trash placing it in the special containers and will then pay the city to have it hauled away where it will be "reclaimed". Richard Conlin, a Seattle city Councilmember said he hopes that the garbage collection rates can be adjusted to absorb some of the additional cost homeowners will have to pay for the food recycling plan, but the real costs are still unknown.

Don't think you will escape these issues living elsewhere. Jared Blumenfeld, the director of the Department of the Environment for the city and county of San Francisco has sent to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a strongly worded letter urging the governor to sign Assembly Bill 548, which will increase California waste diversion by requiring apartment building owners to provide recycling opportunities at multifamily dwellings.

www.cawrecycles.org/files/SF_Environment_548.pdf

The California Integrated Waste Management Board provides to the public guidelines on diverting food waste and offers tips they believe are essential in meeting the California waste reduction goals.

http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/publications/Organics/44204009.doc

Officials know these kinds of measures are needed but know a lot of people are going to be angry and opposed to the plans they propose. In hard economic times who wants to pay more to get the trash hauled away. And how do you know the plan they propose will make things better.

Emanuel Madison goes door to door in Los Angeles' Leimert Park neighborhood as a "recycling ambassador.” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94509325

His mission: to distribute 2-gallon kitchen pails to houses targeted in an experimental garbage pickup program. The city's plan is to try to divert 600 tons of wasted food that go to the landfills every day. The pilot program would have nearly 5,000 Los Angeles households join residents in cities like San Francisco and Seattle, which have been separating table scraps for years and recycling them into compost.

So there you are a plan to charge you the homeowner to sort your trash, and then pay to have it hauled away by the city to "compost". Common sense tells you they are right, you can't keep putting in the landfill. Does composting make sense? Is that really recycling and sustainable? No it is not. You can make the difference and save money too.

Richard Conlin, the Seattle city Councilmember is correct; there should be a reduction the hauling rates if you separate your organic SWM from the other trash because the size of the containers required going to the landfill will be reduced. In fact King County's solid waste management program( http://your.kingcounty.gov/solidwaste/garbage-recycling/recycling.asp )provides incentives in the form of reduced hauling rates for homeowners who can reduce the amount of curbside trash. But you don't want to then have to pay more to have your food scraps and organic waste hauled away to "recycle" at a city or county facility.

How are they going to "recycle" the trash? King County's Solid Waste Division has embarked on a new project to generate usable energy from methane gas produced by the decomposition of garbage at Cedar Hills Regional Landfill. (http://your.kingcounty.gov/solidwaste/facilities/landfill-gas.asp )

King County has contracted with renewable energy company Ingenco—doing business as Bio Energy (Washington), LLC ("Bio Energy")—to convert methane gas produced at the landfill into pipeline quality natural gas for use in the region. That's a big project. Currently they are collecting a million tons of garbage each year, hauling it to the site and letting it decompose. They collect the gas and burn it off because they can't yet make the conversion to a usable form of methane gas. It costs a lot in machinery, labor and energy to haul it off and handle it at the site.

Let's in closing look at the facts and use a little common sense. All that hauling and transferring of trash cost a lot of fuel and labor. We are duplicating the transfer process consuming much more fuel because we've still got to haul trash to the landfill, and now haul organic matter to another site for processing. It is well known that collecting all of the methane produced in a landfill is very difficult and most of it escapes into the atmosphere. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that most experts’ state is 20 to 80 times more effective at heating the planet then carbon dioxide. A lot of carbon dioxide is also produced in the "recycle" site and it also escapes into the atmosphere. The heat from flaming and burning of gases goes straight into the air heating the planet too. And the methane produced is impure, containing many other nitrous and sulfur containing materials that when burned with the methane yield even more toxic gases for the planet to absorb. By the way the main product from methane combustion is carbon dioxide.

It's been a long blog today...........but think about it. You could have processed the trash right at home using microbes to do the work. If you had taken your trash and fermented it using an anaerobic bokashi system, no gases, heat, or toxic waste would have been produced. You wouldn't be paying to have your organic trash hauled by the city to a site where toxins are produced. Next topic........we're going to talk about composting. Maybe you think that is the answer.

Saturday - Dec 20, 2008

I'm the first..........but hope to hear from so many of you. We hear so much about what is wrong, what should be done, how the planet is in a mess and it can be discouraging. But I think there are some very exciting things that can be done to make it a better place, ways to clean up the air, to clear the waters, to minimize polluting methods. What excites me the most is that each us as individuals can do a lot. We'll get into more about this as we blog on.

I want to talk about lots of things.........greenhouse gases, how to get food waste out of the landfill, how to make better gardens and farms, how to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, how to reduce the cost and labor involved in recycling. We have a lot of "experts" telling us what we should or should not do.......to save the planet. I hope to convince you with scientific facts and common sense that a lot of the advice we get just doesn't make sense. Are the planners who ask you to get involved in their plan to save the planet, to recycle, to compost, etc. giving you the best advice?

Did you know that city planners are going to ask you if they haven't already, to separate your food trash from other trash so they can collect it in a separate container? And they are going to then charge you more to haul it away. I hope to convince you there is a better way to keep that food out of the landfill. Do you think composting is the answer? No.......sorry but composting is pretty bad when you look at the facts.

What is bokashi anyway? Some of you probably know a lot about anaerobic fermentation with bokashi (yes fermentation....not composting)! We're going to talk about that too. For those who are not familiar with this term, please visit www.bokashicycle.com. I hope you will be stimulated and begin to think more deeply about how as an individual you can make a difference.

I want to hear from all sides. Don't be afraid to jump in and ask any question. That's what the blog is for...........to learn about all kinds of neat things. I'll post frequently and hope to hear from others too.