Introduction

For this final presentation, I decided to focus on composting and an examination of the organic waste that we throw away every day. I have a strong background in Ecology, Biology and Geology and soil sciences overlap in all of these disciplines  Dirt is something post people often take fro granted so one of the goals of this presentation is to try to get you to consider your daily behaviors and what impact they have on our soils and ultimately, our environment.

Nutrient Cycling: Why Organic Waste Matters:  

When people imagine the threat of using landfills, they often consider the inorganic toxic contributions to waste and not organic matter. Those of us who are the most diligent container and electronics recyclers will notice that the majority of our trash then becomes primarily organic waste. While recycling does have a number of environmental benefits, few consider the need to recycle their organic waste.

In order for plants to grow, they need a number of nutrient inputs from the soils around them such as nitrogen, carbon and phosphorous. These nutrients are provided by microbes in the soil that break down decaying organic matter such as dead bugs, fecal matter, dessicated plant material etc. To supplement plant growth, these nutrients are added by farmers in the form of chemical fertilizers or organic compost. The food is then consumed by the general public where scraps and spoils are put into landfills and the consumed portion may or may not be returned to a natural setting through waste water treatment.

These nutrients are a finite supply on the planet. As generations of crops are removed  so are the elemental nutrients that went into the development of the plant. Once this waste makes its way to a landfill, it can never again be used in croplands due to contamination from other toxic waste materials. This will in turn make the soil less productive, requiring the addition of more nutrients to the soil which can then result in pollution via chemical fertilizer manufacture or over nutrient saturation in nearby wildlife areas.

Though a morbid point to consider, once most Americans die, they are embalmed prior to burial meaning that your body, composed of the elemental nutrients that came from the soils of where you food was grown, can not re-contribute these nutrients back into the soil cycle.

Composting expired, rotten or scraps that will not be eaten is a way of taking these nutrients and returning them to the soil where they can be used to once again grow food or ornamental plants for our health and enjoyment.

List of Compostable Materials

Even though I have not started to set aside compostable materials yet, I want to get into the habit of recognizing what materials I typically throw away that can be added to the heap.

• Food scraps, peels, rotten fruit, fruit cores and leftovers
• Paper towels, tissues and untreated paper
• Cotton balls and swabs (Paper stems, not plastic.)
• Bunny waste (uses recycled paper litter)
• Dead plants
• Vacuum canister dust

I found a website with some unusual compostable materials below:
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/04/16/22-things-you-didnt-know-you-could-compost/

Some of these suggestions did not apply and some were kind of gross (fingernails etc).

Methods

To help illustrate the impact of not setting aside organic waste, I decided to weigh my garbage to show what percentage of my average household trash is comprised of compostable materials. By blogging about this process, I hope to show the tradeoffs between maintaining a compost heap and the environmental impacts of taking no action.

Variables:
I live in a two person town home in a rural section of the foothills with a couple of pets. I am obsessive about recycling so items such as bottles, cans, junkmail, plastic bags etc. do not make their way into the household trash. While I do have a very modest back yard area, I am not responsible for landscape maintenance so a lot of the wood pulp products needed for composting had to come from thieving and borrowing.

Process:
For the month of March, all trash will be weighed before it gets thrown out and recorded. Once April starts, I will begin a compost pile and weigh all of the food scraps and inputs that would have otherwise been thrown into the trash. I will compare this figure to the numbers from March to get a rough estimate of average organic waste. It should be worth noting that I do cook the majority of my meals, breakfast through dinner about 5 days a week.

Sources of Error:
Though I will do my best to keep this as impartial as possible, this is not conducted under laboratory type conditions. Due to fluctuations in weather, financial stability, seasonality of produce and other unforeseen factors, the amount of food waste produced is subject to change from week to week or month to month. To make attractive visual representations of statistics, liberties will be taken with the assumption that my habits mirror those of other people my age.

Table of Total Trash Weight for Feb

Easiest part of the process, I weighed the trash every time I took it out. I took it out once the bag got full:

Date	Weight
2/2/13	4.4 lbs
2/7/13	5.7 lbs
2/17/13	4.2 lbs
2/22/13	4.8 lbs
3/1/13	4.3 lbs

My Trip to the Garden Supply Store

End of February which means I am now going to start the composting process. I did find out that compost was against my homeowner association rules but they haven't noticed the broken gutter over my patio that turns my deck into a skating rink so I doubt they will notice the compost pile.

I went to Jarod's, in a nearby town to get chicken wire and ask a few tips from the people there.
The chicken wire was inexpensive, particularly because I will be working on a smaller pile. I also had to pick up a pitchfork to use to turn the pile over to keep it mixed. They told me to just keep the mixture in the pile 50 percent dry brown and 50 percent damp greens. They were nice enough to give me a bunch of dead grass plants that I could use to help make up what was sure to be a shortage in dry browns.

I set the wire up in the corner of my garden area with some of the dead grass in it, it was now time to clean out my fridge and add all of the veggies and fruits that had gone bad...

Table for March:

Date	Weight of Compostable waste	Weight of Trash
Initial pile from fridge	2.0lbs	-
3/9/13	1.0 lbs	3.9
3/15/13	1.2 lbs	3.0
3/22/13	2.1 lbs	2.7
3/31/13	.9lbs	3.6

Graphs for fun:

Observations about Composting

Maintaining the compost pile has not been that difficult. The worst part is going outside in the cold to drop off every scrap rather than just throwing it in the garbage. Turning the pile is very easy since it only takes up a square yard and there is something inherently satisfying about stabbing it.

There was no unpleasant smell and the kitchen trash smelled a lot less so that was a big bonus. Also the puppy is no longer interested in going after the garbage bag which is tremendously convenient.

The only real difficulty I had was tracking down straw, branches and "brown" waste. By begging my neighbors for scraps I discovered the old lady next to me is a fan of squirrels and had an ample cache of peanut shells that I get to use. The less observant squirrels have been rummaging through the compost which has actually been kinda helpful as they keep the pile turned and they have been hiding other biologic scraps in it. I have also resorted to stealing pine cones from my other neighbor, I hope they won't notice.

I still do not have anything that looks like decent soil, just kinda branchy trash. The person at the gardening center told me that 1) the temperature has been too cold for optimal decomposition and 2) I have been turning the pile too often, not letting the center heat up and decompose the things in the middle. Toward the very end, I notice more soil like texture appearing.

Once there is some kind of soil, I am not too sure what to do with it. I do have a garden area but it is pretty small and there will only be so much I can use. Most of my neighbors have smaller yards as well so over time, the pile is going to exceed need.

I have found no need to invest in worms or other organisms to start the pile, they seem to have found it just fine.

How Does This Impact your Life?

First off, some facts about compost composition:

The average urban compost pile is made of about 90 percent organic material and 10 percent mineral.

The nutrient breakdown depends HEAVILY on the types of materials that went into the compost in the first place. You could expect to see something like this:

Nutrient	Percent Concentration
Nitrogen	2.6
Carbon	27
Phosphorous	.9
Potassium	2.0
Sulfur	.5
Iron	.8
Zinc	.02
Copper	.006
Boron	.002
Manganese	.03

Plus or minus a handful of minerals.

These nutrients are essential to plant growth and have a delicate balance between the atmosphere, plants and the soil. In order to increase crop production, companies add excessive amounts of these nutrients to the soil and crops remove a lot of trace minerals in the process. Since the average American does not compost, these minerals and nutrients from leftover plant waste go to the dump where they interact with battery acid, toxic metals and other contaminants that should go nowhere near your food. Essentially, they are removed from the system.

Now assuming I am an average American household (which may or may not be a pretty big IF) when it comes to throwing away organic material:

In one year I would waste about 61 pounds of organic material.

In that same year, this class would waste about 1600 pounds of organic material.

That means everyone at UCDenver would waste about 17 million pounds of organic material.

And the state of Colorado would waste about 305 million pounds of organic material.

And compounded over many years, that is a large amount of essential plant and ecosystem nutrition that we are surrendering to landfills every year.

But what if I cannot, at all, have a compost heap?

There are still things you can do such as being aware of how much food you throw out. Taking smaller trips to the grocery store, buying what you know you would eat, freezing excess portions, being better about refrigeration and food preservation techniques etc.

Conclusion

Getting started was the most difficult part of the process, from there is was a minor lifestyle change. Although I was not a very avid gardener prior to this experiment, having a large pile of compost will most likely lead to more green endeavors, particularly as it is now almost constantly on my mind. I did find a community garden not too far from me in Idaho Springs that has volunteered to take bags of excess compost so in addition to composting myself, I can decrease other people's carbon footprint by helping supply healthy local food sources for the community (it's also a great excuse to head up to the hotsprings)

Really, composting is just a form of recycling but for chemistry instead of materials. As a result of this process, I have also established more of a connection with my neighbors (via begging for dry scraps, explaining what I am doing with a pitchfork in the snow, and offering free dirt to anyone who will want some come summer.) If composting became a more common place activity, it is easy to see the positive impacts that could spread all across communities.


Resources:
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/04/16/22-things-you-didnt-know-you-could-compost/
http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/fundamentals/benefits_benefits.htm
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/eng4466
http://vric.ucdavis.edu/events/2009_osfm_symposium/UC%20Organic%20Symposium%20010609%2005b%20Hartz.pdf
http://www.nal.usda.gov/wqic/Bibliographies/eb9503.html