Investigation Part 3: Composting
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ranks methods of handling food waste in the diagram below:
Composting is listed as the second least preferred method of reducing the environmental impact of food waste. Nonetheless, it will be explored in this portion of the investigation.
Background Information
All organic material – such as orange and banana peels and apple cores that come from Stuart’s cafeteria – will eventually decompose, but composting is a human-monitored activity that speeds up the process of decomposition. It involves combining “green”, nitrogen-rich materials, such as fruit and vegetable scraps, with “brown”, carbon-rich materials, such as twigs and dead leaves. When combined in
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The “parts”, or inputs, required to compost are a container or designated area (to be discussed later), green material, brown material, human monitoring, and time. When these parts are combined to create an “entirety”, they relate in such a way that the system “functions” to create a soil-like substance.
Environmental Benefits
The most practical use of compost is to combine it with actual soil and use it as a plant growth medium. Composting is immersed by environmental benefits, whether the benefits are applicable during the composting process or applicable when the compost is used to support plant growth.
• While greens and browns transform into compost, microorganism break down molecules. These molecules provide food for larger organisms, such as fungi and worms. In turn, these organisms attract even larger predators, such as birds. Compost piles create a miniature ecosystem packed with thriving organisms of numerous types and sizes.
• The crumb-like structure of compost allows it to store or release air and water depending on the plant’s needs. Also, the fact that compost provides air and water through plants’ roots reduces the need for plants to obtain air and water from the atmosphere. Furthermore, compost’s ability to store over 60% of its own mass in water reduces the need for plants to be watered and improves their chances of surviving through droughts.
• Compost is an
Food waste causes a large amount of environmental issues. These are caused by the loss of natural resources which are in the production of food.
Soil is the basis for the natural ecosystems and a living thing, it sustains life on Earth and works as a natural recycling facility with nutrients to the plants. However, many people do not know about the good benefits that soil gives to our lives and how humans hurt the conditions of soil with chemicals. Soil is often times mistreated due to the misconception of soil as dirt. Nevertheless, Professor Asmeret Berhe highlighted during the lecture, Soil, that soil is a place of full of life that supports living thing. The living organism depends on the conditions of soil because soil delivers nutrients to plants. For instance, improving the conditions of the soil increases the harvest of crops. Unhealthy soil will not be able to do its job as a natural recycling facility, and not be able to give a good amount of nutrients to plants to abundantly grow. Therefore, conditions of soil are very important in agriculture. Furthermore, having organic soils can conserve the amount of water used for irrigation. Soil is main supply of water to all land and plants because it holds the water for organisms. Organic soil can hold few amounts of water for a long time so it helps farmers to reduce the agricultural water consumption. Soil is very important to out lives than what we imagine and think. The global awareness of soil preservation is less significant to people than other conservation efforts like reducing the amount of plastic used, but soil preservation is very significant to our earth system. Therefore, it is very important for humans to help the Earth healthy sustain life by stop mistreating soil as dirt and treating it as a living thing that holds full of
Food waste is an environmental, economic, and ethical problem that can lead to less calorie intake and unnecessary damage of our assets. Individual behavior can redesign food waste at home and lead to bigger changes in the ecosystem. The problem is Americans throw out more food than glass, paper, and plastic. Also about 25% of food grown, processed, and transported in the US will never be consumed. When food is disposed in a landfill it rots and becomes a significant source of methane— a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.
Agriculture, flourishing nature, and eco-friendly energy solutions, are only a few things we are making into innovative features in Grecho. One thing Grecho is known for is it’s major composting and agricultural buildings. Composting is a big thing in our city, and we want to focus on it because it saves money, saves resources, improves the soil we use for our agriculture, and
Households can recycle and reduce their amount of waste by taking certain biodegradable materials and start a compost bin. It is here that the common wastes such as food scraps, coffee grounds or anything that has a high organic matter can be put together and let nature take its course. “Using composts in agriculture to minimize organic wastes and to reduce the addition of fertilizers and fungicides in crop production is highly effective”. (Stan, Virsta, Dusa, Glavan, 2009 pg 1) So the compost that is produced can be used to help fertilize the ground in which crops even flowers are grown cutting down on pesticides and fertilizers. The organic component, in materials, can be used in compost recycling to help to promote a healthy soil. By having a healthier soil this provides a healthier plant. This
Many things that all biodegradable and up in landfills the things that take years to decompose. Such as plastic, glass, metals! etc. This problem can be solved by me, with help, using $1000. When people throw away certain things, they don't know that many of those items are organic matter that can be decomposed. When you gather these organic and biodegradable items into a band, they decompose. This is called composting. The mixture inside the bin is called compost.this compost can be used as fertilizer and can help condition land. Things like fresh grass clippings, flowers, vegetable and fruit feelings such as potatoes and orange peelings, vegetable crop residue such as potatoes and tomato plants, herbivore manure, such as horse, cow, and rabbit,
While watching the video-presentation of Tony Avants’ speech on soils, I came to realize the importance of not only the quality of soil that one begins with, but also the quality of products used to enhance it. He states that there is a common gardening myth that plants do not recognize the difference between chemical and organic fertilizers. While that may be true for plants, the microbes in the soil know the difference and have a preference. They prefer the fertilizers made by nature. It would be easy to add chemicals to increase the Carbon these microbes feed off, but it would be much more cost effective, and better for the environment to use a Carbon-rich compost to fertilize one’s soil.
In the last several years, food waste has become an ever-growing issue in the United States. We are starting to recognize the significance of food waste and the impact it has on our economic, social, and environmental costs. Americans buy more food than they need, this is a commonly known fact. In the United States about 30-40 percent of the available food supply goes uneaten every year. In order to understand and eliminate food waste we must remember that food is the most powerful basic necessity for human beings.
In Sweden, less than 1% of their trash ends up in landfills. 50% of their trash is incinerated, causing steam that spin generator turbines, creating electricity which is distributed across the country from their WtE (Waste to Energy) facilities. One way we can reduce our amount of trash is by recycling everyday objects such as plastic water bottles, newspapers, the bags newspaper comes in, old graded papers, etc. Instead of throwing away old food from your refrigerator, you can start a compost heap. A compost heap is a pile of organic materials that decompose and produce compost. This compost heap is great for growing crops, since it is very fertile land.
“Reducing food waste in the United States requires changes in the way it is produced, stored, processed, distributed and consumed.”
It may seem like a harmless act, however, food waste emits a toxic greenhouse gas known as methane. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, methane is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted from human activities. In 2013, it accounted for about 10% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. Greenhouse gases contribute to global warming and they could potentially contaminate groundwater by being stored in landfills. Not only does food waste release toxins in the air, it causes an unpleasant odor that could potentially attract unwanted animals. So how much food waste is there exactly? “In 2010 an estimated 31% of the food in U.S. stores and homes were uneaten, and Americans shipped approximately 34 million tons of food waste to landfills” (Dahl). However, the negative talk against landfills has recently caused states to take initiative to reduce the how much waste gets transported into the landfills, for example, according to Dahl, Connecticut was the first to take such action. They did so by limiting the companies that generate the most waste, but they are not the only state with this type of plan. This essay will discuss two ways to give food waste a second chance by making it more
Transportation of waste to landfills, processing waste through garbage disposals, composting, and animal feed are the primary methods of food waste disposal in the United States. Although these methods have their benefits, they also have limitations and some negative effects on our environment. As the world population continues to grow, it will likely cause more pressure on waste management. Managing this waste is a constant concern to food service establishments. The cost to travel to the landfill is steadily increasing since 2008 because of the increase in food waste. With the disposal of waste, we have to consider the labor, storage facilities, supplies like bags, equipment rental, haul charges, and food safety. For instance, food waste processed by a garbage disposal requires the use of water and energy. Composting requires the use of vehicles, farm equipment, land, and labor. These are all costly endeavors that affect the environment but must be done in order to process the massive amount of food waste that is produced in the US.
1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year on the planet, which means that almost half of the food production in the entire world is wasted each year. Food waste appears when food products are being thrown away without having been consumed by anyone. Thus, food wastes can arise directly from the consumer’s house, whenever people forget to eat the food and it starts to rot and they are obliged to throw it, or it may be a result of food losses during the production and transportation processes. In addition, over 30% of the fruits and vegetables in North America are not even displayed in grocery stores because they are not pretty enough. Food waste represents a major issue in today’s world where, inter alia, climate changes are noticeable and
Listen do you know how much money an average person wastes on buying compost for their plants. Plus when you have for example an apple core seems useless well that's where you're wrong. See if you were to use that apple core and other eaten or rotten fruits/vegetables you could put those in a compost where overtime will become perfect for your plants and trees. I forgot to mention that the compost you make with these ingredients is equally good as the ones you buy at the store.
There are billions of people struggling every day to have enough to eat, and billions of tons of food being tossed in the garbage, food waste is gaining increasing awareness as a serious environmental and economic issue. Research shows that about 60 million metric tons of food is wasted a year in the United States, with an estimated value of $162 billion. About 32 million tons of it end up in landfills, at a cost of about $1.5 billion a year to local government this economic crisis is worldwide! My research estimates that a third of all the food produced in the world is never consumed, and the total cost of that food waste could be as high as $400 billion a year. The food discarded by retailers and consumers in the most developed countries would be more than enough to feed all of the world’s hungry people, but it is not just those countries that have problems with food waste, it is also an issue in African countries like South Africa. The problem is expected to grow worse as the world’s population increases, unless actions are taken to reduce the waste. Food waste is not only a social cost, but it contributes to growing environmental problems like global warming, experts say, with the production of food consuming vast quantities of water, fertilizer and land. The fuel that is burned to process, refrigerate and transport it also adds to the environmental cost. Most food waste is thrown away in landfills, where it decomposes and emits methane, a potent