Composting+(Morgan+Mills)

COMPOSTING Video: This video about composting by Wiggly Worm and his friends takes a playful approach to explaining what composing does and how it helps our environment. Specifics on this particular topic can be found below.

media type="youtube" key="kq3yfKCC9ok" height="364" width="445" align="center"  What is it? -Composting is a natural way of recycling organic items such as leftover food scraps, leaves, agricultural remains, exc. It decomposes these extras into reusable nutrients that fertilize the soil and eliminate the amount of waste going to landfills. Microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi break down the natural factors in the compost into black humus. The bacteria do this by feeding on the organic waste in the compost, which in turn releases heat into the atmosphere. Anything that once lived can be decomposed and broken down into the humus. Black humus then releases nutrients that can be used in gardens. Bad bacteria is kept out of the compost pile are killed by the decomposers while they use the oxygen from the air. This outdoor composting could also be called warm composting because it releases heat. Don’t worry, if you live in an apartment, composts can be formed indoors and out by using holding units. This can also be called word composting because the worms can also compost the materials, just like the bacteria. You can tell that your compost if finally done when no more heat is generated, even if you turn the pile, and if it is dark and looks like soil. When a compost pile is done, you can usually no longer tell what any of the wastes are when a compost pile is done. Composting is organic recycling using a simple process of placing your waste and that can help our Earth and save you money. 

-Caution: When making compost, you want to avoid things that would bring harm to the compost. First of all, you should not put your pet’s waste in the compost because the bacterium in them damages the compost pile. Secondly, you should not put in older weeds that have developed because the heat of the pile will not be enough to kill them. Other non desirable plants for compost piles are infested/diseased plants, toxic leaves such as walnut and rhubarb leaves, and plants that are treated with insecticides and herbicides. The food products you have to make sure to not put into the pile is foods that create a stench as they rot or will attract animals who like human food. Examples of this ‘bad food’ are meats, fish, fats, and dairy products.



What problems is it trying to address? -Composting fixes problems caused by landfills by eliminating the amount of waste. It reduces the amount of waste that even makes it to the landfills. By doing this, it reduces the amount of harmful carbon in the air. Also, composting acts as a natural fertilizer. The problems caused by human-made fertilizers are eliminated by using the natural organic ‘fertilizer’ made in a compost pile. (See examples of the fertilizers made in the ‘When is it useful?’ section) The main goal of composting is to reduce the amount of waste in our world. Reducing the amount of waste in our world has many direct and indirect benefits for our environment.  When is it useful? -Composting is useful in gardens as soil and it is useful when you have a lot of organic waste. It can be used as things such as soil improvement, mulch, top dressing, side dressing and potting soil for fertilizer. One other unique use is for compost tea, which is ‘tea’ made by soaking a bag of compost in water to use as a spot fertilizer. Composting can be useful when you need fertilizer because it saves you the money you would use to buy fertilizer. Although you cannot put eggs, cheese and meat in your compost, it still has a positive impact on our environment. This can also lower the cost for your city’s waste removal because composting in a community reduces a large amount of waste that could potentially be harmful. Also, it reduces your cities cost for a landfill, because when not as much goes in the landfill, they can last longer. In schools all over the world, students use compost piles to reduce their schools waste, which can be very useful in reducing waste on a large-scale setting. Just remember, composting is always useful to our Earth.



What nutrient cycles does this topic relate to? -Composting relates to the Carbon Cycle because the microorganisms convert carbon found in the compost into more useful and harmless gasses. A compost pile can prevent more excess carbon from being released into our atmosphere. When plant wastes go into a landfill, they release an excess amount of CO2 and methane, common greenhouse gasses. These can be very damaging to our environment because they keep the heat in out atmosphere, which slightly raises our temperature causing global warming. If you made a compost pile of brown carbon rich items instead of sending our organic materials to the landfill, then this would help reduce global warming. This also affects the Nitrogen Cycle because when we put the green nitrogen-rich items in the pile, it helps the bacteria to break down the pile. The soil bacteria, just like in the nitrogen cycle, break down NO2 into rich ingredients the pile could use to help decompose. Also, very critical and helpful things to put in your compost are very nitrogen and carbon rich ingredients because it helps the bacteria to decompose the pile faster.



Is it a viable solution to protect the biosphere? -Composting is a good solution to helping humans reduce the waste in our environment because it uses decomposition to bring our organic wastes back into the usable nutrients. Composting can protect the temperature in our biosphere only when we reduce the amount of waste going to landfills.

What are the possible consequences to the environment? -Although the environment is not harmed, a problem with composting is that when you don’t put the right organic materials in, the compost pile could either not work or have a very foul odor that your neighbors might not appreciate. Composting does not harm the environment because it uses only organic materials and decomposers to reduce your waste and create fertilized soil.

Works Cited: 
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//Backyard Magic - The Composting Handbook//. (n.d.). Retrieved October 19, 2009, from http://www.gnb.ca/0009/0372/0003/0001-e.asp
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//Carbon Cycle//. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2009, from http://www.fossweb.com/resources/pictures/361828511.gif
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//Compost Tea Stanthorpe//. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2009, from http://www.teaforlife.com.au/
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//Compost:: Managing a Nature Process//. (2009, September 9). Retrieved October 15, 2009, from http://smelllikedirt.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/compostlogo2.jpg
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//Composting//. (2006, December 14). Retrieved October 15, 2009, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq3yfKCC9ok
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//Container Gardening Supplies//. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2009, from http://www.homeharvest.com/containergardenmain.htm
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//Education- Composting//. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2009, from http://www.brightergreenconsulting.com/GreenBar.asp?idCat=1&idGreen=41
 * <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">//Home Composting//. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2009, from http://www.richmond.ca/services/recycling/composting/compost.htm

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