Compost Awareness Week : King Conservation District

May 1-7 is International Compost Awareness Week and this year’s theme is Recipe for Regeneration: Compost, with the goal being to build awareness on the benefits of compost use and organics recycling. The 2022 theme highlights the overall regenerative agriculture movement and how compost and organics recycling fit into that process.

Compost, when added to farmland, gardens, yards, and other landscapes creates healthier soils and crops by providing food for soil microbes in the ground. These microbes enrich the quality of the soil while also sequestering carbon in the soil through photosynthesis.

Here are some key facts from the Compost Research and Education Foundation regarding organics recycling and compost use:

The use of landfill space and incineration can be reduced by at least one-third when organics are recycled.
Methane, a greenhouse gas twenty-five times as powerful as carbon dioxide, can be significantly reduced through the recycling of organics.
Soil health and productivity is dependent on organic matter – the essence of compost — to provide the sustenance for the biological diversity in the soil. Plants depend on this to convert materials into plant-available nutrients and to keep the soil well-aerated. Additional benefits include the reduced need for pesticide usage to ward off soil-borne and other plant diseases.
Compost’s return to the soil serves as a “carbon bank,” helping to store carbon thereby removing it from the atmosphere.
Compost is a huge benefit for both water conservation and quality. When used in water quality projects, compost bind pollutants to the organics material and prevents them from entering our lakes, wetlands, streams and rivers. Soil erosion is mitigated, and water-holding capacity improved through compost’s enhancement of soil structure, binding soil particles together.