International Compost Awareness Week May 3-9, 2020
Highlights of Composting
International Compost Awareness Week will be celebrated from May 3 – 9. However, this year it will be celebrated in a more individual way, reflective of the current times and circumstances brought upon by the Coronavirus. This week highlights the importance of organics recycling and the use of compost to help restore the health of soils and soften the impact of human activity on the environment.
Now in its 25th International Anniversary year, International Compost Awareness Week, the largest and most comprehensive education initiative of the compost industry, transcends political and cultural boundaries to encourage ever-greater organics residuals recycling and compost use, encouraged by the following facts and benefits:
- 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 instead of them being landfilled.
- Soil health and productivity is dependent on organic matter in the form 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 when used in water quality projects, 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 which helps bind soil particles together.
- Compost offers a significant answer to climate change mitigation. Compost's return to the soil serves as a "carbon bank," helping to store carbon thereby removing it from the atmosphere.