What You Need To Know About Composting

One of the great ways to keep our food systems and planet healthy is by composting. Composting is the process of setting aside select food scraps to decompose into a kind of soil, called compost. As we mentioned in our post on food waste, many restaurants take advantage of composting. Additionally, many people compost at home, whether by creating compost areas on their own property or by using composting services to take away their scraps and treat them.

How does composting work? Why does composting matter?

If compostable food scraps are not used for compost, they will leave the natural cycle of decay and regrowth. Sure, food left in a landfill decomposes, but not the efficient way that food placed into compost does. This is because there are all kinds of strategies to composting, a chemical balancing act that leads to compost.

Food scraps like citrus peels and vegetable rinds (collectively called green waste) are generally high in nitrogen. In composting, these nitrogenous food wastes are combined with items high in carbon, often dry leaves or fallen tree branches (called brown waste). Once the compost pile has reached the right carbon-to-nitrogen ratio, oxygen comes into play.

The ensuing reaction is aerobic, meaning oxygen is required. Chemically, what happens is that the carbon oxidizes, which is facilitated by organisms the nitrogen helps flourish. In order to keep the supply of oxygen sufficient, compost is “turned” from time to time, reshuffling the contents of the pile, and exposing buried parts to fresh oxygen.

A host of actors break food scraps down into compost. They range from from fungi to earthworms.

There are several phases of the composting process. Composting can occur quickly, or a compost pile can be managed so that the scraps turn back to soil more slowly.

The composting process differs on farms. Often, highly complex animal and crop rotation processes are synchronized with compost cycles, creating a sustainable loop. Farms may utilize straw beds and livestock manure in composting. The chemical nature of composting is so complex that the process may vary immensely based on what kind of animal waste is used.

In the end, compost is a highly useful kind of soil.

First, compost can be mixed with all kinds of other soil. Second, compost can be used alone as a soil. Third, compost can be used as topsoil, which is one of the more interesting uses. The food writer Michael Pollan has reported that California ranchers have found that, after applying an inch-thick layer of compost as topsoil in a field, the field then had 1.5 more tons of carbon per acre.

All kinds of foods can be used in composting. Most notably, you can compost fruit, vegetables, coffee grounds, grain products, cereal, seeds, jam, and cheese.

Composting is a complex but simple process based on creating new life from what would otherwise be refuse. It is a small process that can provide a substantial benefit to global food systems.

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