By Selena Randall
This week is International Compost Awareness Week and the Compost Council of Canada is inviting us to ‘feed the soil’. That means giving back to the soil that grows our food.
Soil is the basis of life on our planet, but it can take well over 500 years to create just a couple of centimetres. Soil is vulnerable to losses through wind erosion, water erosion, and its structure can be damaged by compaction and water-logging. Soil that is lacking in organic matter will dry out quickly, be low in nutrients and have poor plant structure for plant growth. Well-nourished soil resists erosion, retains moisture and can suppress plant diseases, reducing the need for watering and the application of pesticides.
In our gardens, or even simply our lawns, we can feed our soil by composting. In composting, tiny, beneficial bacteria and fungi quickly break down organic matter producing the vital nutrients and material that will maintain healthy and productive soil. Compost ‘tea’ fed to trees, vegetable beds, flower beds and lawns has far better results than any manufactured fertilizer. Composted material added to soil will boost flower beds, and vegetable gardens. Sprinkled on grass it will help it stay green year round.
Items that can be composted include leaves, yard waste, wood, food scraps, paper, cardboard and manure. In Canada, compost is used by landscaping services, nurseries, greenhouses, garden centres, topsoil blenders, golf courses and agricultural businesses, as well as for landfill projects.
Where I live in Hanover, garden waste goes to landfill, but in parts of Steinbach, and in St Pierre Joly, kerbside composting schemes make the most of the organic waste we generate. The greatest tonnage of material being recycled across Canada is organics, but with about 50% of Canada's waste stream being organic residuals, more could be composted. When sent to landfill, this material generates about 38% of Canada's total methane emissions: an avoidable source of greenhouse gases.
As I walked my dog this evening, I noted big piles of plastic bags filled with leaves and grass thatch – all wonderful compostable material. I was tempted to ‘rescue’ a few bags to mix with the vegetable scraps that I saved all winter, but I have saved the leaves from last fall to mix in and have my own thatch raked out over the weekend.
If you can’t be persuaded to compost yourself, and you are not lucky enough to have a kerbside collection scheme, I encourage you to ask around your neighbours. There is a good chance that one of them will be glad to take your garden waste or they may know someone who will. Alternatively, you can take your garden waste to the Steinbach landfill facility and dispose of it in the ‘green bins’, where it is taken for composting. Whilst you are there you can pick up bags of the finished product from the municipal composting scheme.
And why not learn a little about recycling and the composting scheme at Steinbach landfill by joining South Eastman Transition Initiative on a tour on Wednesday May 22 (7-9pm).