The final word on the true value of compost this International Compost Awareness Week.
When talking about carbon as it exists in soils, some might refer to distinctions such as SOC, POC, MAOM etc but what we could really do with is some more analytical chemistry in this space. What’s the aromaticity score? What’s the oxygen saturation and is it more ester linked or ether linked? What changes are happening with fatty acids, amino sugars, phenol derivatives etc etc.
Compost experts know that well composted materials imbue permanency into soil carbon - it’s time to figure out the chemical basis of these changes so that it can be tracked. Then composters can finally be rewarded for their climate saving work.
Compost is not just about cheaper landfills, cleaner recycling streams and avoided landfill gas. It’s not even about nutrient return (although 2-3% nitrogen and plant available phosphate is nothing to sneeze at!). It’s about taking our excesses out of cities and using them to repair and rejuvenate soils so they can once more be super productive, resilient carbon sinks.
#carbon #biochemistry #climate
#icaw #icaw2024 @ilsr_org
Is composting the best that it can be? Not yet!
Last year I spent about 100 hrs reading up on scientific papers that looked at composting but also the issue of building back our soil carbon levels more broadly.
Besides A LOT of work that we can all contribute on with cleaning up our waste and recycling streams there is also some hugely beneficial work that can be done on carbon transformation via composting.
If anyone has any questions on the economics of how we get this work done please as them below :)
That reminds me - someone mentioned something to me the other day, about people finding it hard to come up with interesting questions for me. But I genuinely welcome all questions! Especially when on this highly useful public forum instead of one on one conversations.
#icaw #icaw2024 #compost #climateaction #soilcarbon #regenerativeagriculture #regeneration #regenerativeliving
Composting is microbe farming.
Vindication is the best! And especially when it’s backed up with #science. I got into the whole #composting thing because I knew that #bacteria were capable of so much more, and I had strong hypotheses for how they do their thing.
Brand new scientific findings were released last month looking at carbon use efficiency (CUE) and how this affects the accumulation of #soilcarbon. The microhabitat of the soil bacteria was shown to be important in terms of what traits were displayed.
How does this relate to compost? We can take what we know about those microhabitats, and how the bacteria react to them and scale it up impressively for some serious carbon transformation and stabilization. This is incredibly good news!!
It’s not just any composting that will do this trick but we know how to drive the process to get these amazing benefits.
Sokol, N.W., Foley, M.M., Blazewicz, S.J., Battacharyya, A., DiDonato,
N., Estera-Molina, K., Firestone, M., Greenlon, A., Hungate, B.A., Kimbrel, J., Liquet, J., Lafler, M.,
Marple, M., Nico, P.S., Paša-Tolić, L., Slessarev, E., Pett-Ridge, J., The path from root input to mineralassociated soil carbon is shaped by habitat-specific microbial traits and soil moisture, Soil Biology and Biochemistry (2024), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2024.109367
#Bioplastics are everywhere these days. We rescued these three biocups from three different vendors at the Multicultural festival on the weekend. They will be efficiently composted in our system. Once we get
a larger facility funded then we can process a whole lot of these and that prospect is very exciting! But we actually NEED the food waste to power this process. Luckily there are tens of thousands of tonnes of
food waste going to our landfill here in Canberra that can help.
In the meantime, these bioplastic materials pose a threat to recycling systems. Recycling processes designed for petrochemical plastics aren’t designed for a mix containing bioplastics. There is good work being done to delineate different materials, making labels clearer for example. These biocups from @biopak.packaging , and other brands use a green stripe to highlight compostable items. But you always need to check for certification symbols to make sure. And many items will need a robust, industrial process (like ours!) to efficiently degrade bioplastics. We suspect that many of these cups ended up in recycling bins this weekend. That is something that we want to help fix.
What do you think? Reusables are great, no question about that. But seeing as bioplastics are increasingly used for so many applications then surely we need to install the right type of processing to
make them actually circular?
#circulareconomy #systems #sustainability #hospitality #foodservice #festival #canberra
This is the necessary work to allow others to catch up on the benefits of #composting (and better composting).
One of the reasons that we pulled back on some of our household scraps collections is admitting that we were getting ahead of the game, trying to push for solutions before there was a good general understanding of the situation.
Pretty much everyone, from the general community to those that can help fund or regulate solutions, has a very shallow understanding of the phenomena we call composting. Sometimes this comes across
as a criticism. I’ve had plenty of people get grumpy at me and say things like ‘I’ve been composting for decades and it works great!’. That’s fine, that’s something to celebrate. And that’s not what I’m talking about.
Some of the sub-issues that have been underestimated are: just how damaging #landfill gas is (how much of it there is, and how difficult it is to capture), just how powerful #biology is, how much productivity we can drive by better harnessing that power, how we can effectively stabilise and therefore sequester carbon using nature-based solutions.
Plenty more to come on these issues, especially if you let me know there is an appetite to learn 😀
I enjoy the research, the double checking of the carbon accounting, the re-analysis to help shed light on confusing data. All for a better #climate!
You ask for #compostscience, and we deliver! 👩🔬😁
Everyone talks about things breaking down in #compost but have you ever thought about what is potentially created in a compost heap? Depending on a couple of different factors some super fancy molecules can arise out of the complexity. What are they good for? Storing carbon!!
But also: giving texture and chemical properties to soil, to make it a healthier and more resilient matrix for all of the life forms that depend on it.
Got more questions? Throw them at us! We love digging up (pun intended) the evidence for all this good stuff 😃
#climatescience #transformation #sequestration #biochemistry #earthscience
Like a battery! But also wondrously not so.
Batteries not only store energy, they also need to be dispatch-able. But in the case of #compost we can tune it to either be dispatchable or not. It’s a question of how stable the #carbon becomes. And that depends on the metabolism of the #microbes. And THAT is something we can modulate depending on the tweaking of some process parameters.
The fantastic thing about stabilising carbon via #composting is that you can then draw in even more energy into the system, by supporting more microbial growth, #healthiersoils, more plant growth and more photosynthesis. It’s a virtuous cycle 😍
Truly #regenerative
#biochemistry
Occassionally we need to reorganise our route. For example this morning! Hackett addresses were checked early this morning (normally we do Watson first). This is why we advise putting the buckets out the night before, just like the other kerbside pickups.
Luckily in Hackett there are twice weekly pickups, so if you missed out we will get your scraps next Tuesday :)
Planting fruit stickers is nonsense. But that’s the end result we get if you forget to take the stickers off your mandarin peels!
In good news, some companies are looking into compostable versions of these stickers. Alternatively, governments around the world are thinking of banning the stickers altogether. Check out the article in our stories post today to learn all about the history and use of these stickers! Thanks @cosmosmagazine for this informative article.
In the meantime, peel off the little stickers and proudly display them on the back of your hand to remind yourself that you ate nutritious fruit 🍌 😁 before putting them in the landfill bin at the end of the day.
#plasticpollution
#waragainstwaste
#healthylifestyle
#healthyfood
If you say you understand #composting that would be a lie. #Science is only just at the beginning of describing these processes that help us lock away excess carbon.
Support us as we uncover the secrets and scale up the use of composting to move us into a bio-based #future. We’re starting with local food waste but there are plenty of other resources going begging when they could be put to work for better #climate outcomes.
#biochemistry
#scienceonsocialmedia
#biodegradation
#carboncycle
#regenerative
#latergram: A belated thanks to the band playing Beatles classics in @haigparkcbr last Sunday.
This moment highlighted a key part of our mission! To make high-efficiency, climate beneficial composting an everyday and highly public occurrence.
To be honest there is a little odour released when we get in and perform this ‘refresh’ work (it involves completely turning over the compost). Although that is normally only for a few minutes and gets fixed up quickly. I usually get in early for this task before the Sunday morning market (@haigparkvillagemarkets). So it was a pleasant surprise to have some live music when I turned up much later in the day this time.
What could be better on a Sunday? Refreshing compost piles, live music and market stalls, lots of happy dogs and families 😃🐕🦺🪁
#sustainablecities #sustainablecitiesandcommunities #communitycompost #communitycomposting #urbanparks
Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Better than Compost, Canberra Central.
