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Composting To Reduce Landfill Sites And The
Path To Biofuel SustainabilityThroughout Europe all nations are committed to the processing of
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) to divert as much of our organic waste as
possible away from landfill. This is a high priority for the United
Kingdom if we are to reach Government recycling targets which are
designed to ensure we comply with required landfill diversion rates as
set by the EU Landfill Directive.
What is the easiest way to divert organic waste away from landfill, and
close a lot of landfills for good?
The answer to this is composting. Composting is the natural way to bring
left-over organic material back into the nutrient cycle. It also
replaces chemical fertilisers and improves the quality of the soil,
reducing crop pests, and retaining more moisture in the soil which then
means that less watering is needed.
So composting is a good way to divert waste from landfill, but is there
real demand for the huge quantities that could be made from the very
large proportion of our municipal solid waste which is organic?
No, there are good reasons for concluding that there will never be a
large enough demand for it from farmers and gardeners, because there is
a huge amount of organic waste in our rubbish from potato peelings to
newspapers, cardboard, and even our old non-synthetic clothes.
Composting can also be the first stage toward more sophisticated waste
processing technologies such as Anaerobic Digestion, and take us toward
a much more sustainable carbon economy which many see as the
intermediate step civilisation needs to go through before entering the
age of the hydrogen economy.
The vision of a carbon economy leads us toward a need to increase
methane production. This is because there will be a demand to produce a
lot of methane which can then be processed further into biofuel such as
biomethanol and biodiesel away from dependency on oil as our fuel source
- and toward a marvelous new freedom from fossil fuels.
However, just as in most scientific and commercial advances, they work
best through evolution rather than revolution, and so it will be with
composting. Many nations including the UK, are now composting very
successfully, but we appreciate that composting alone will not bring us
to the point where we become
sustainable.
We realise that we need sustainable renewable fuels very urgently to
stop using fossil fuels and reduce the rate of climate change. By
building on our success with household green waste and by beginning to
compost commercial waste, and food
wastes too, we are developing a culture which begins to accept organic
waste processing, and not land filling as the norm. Many successful new
businesses have been created to process compost in the UK, and those
businesses will naturally seek to develop and diversify.
Composting requires energy, it is a net carbon emitter and it is still
not very sustainable for Municipal Solid Wastes. It is not the best use
of waste organic matter which can contain a lot of contaminating
materials.
So, how can we adapt composting to be a net carbon emissions reducer, or
"Carbon Negative" and allow these new business to expand their hard won
skills in biowaste processing?
The answer is Anaerobic Digestion for all the organic waste feed-stocks
suitable for it.
The process of anaerobic digestion (composting without air (oxygen))
uses organic waste materials to produce methane gas. The methane gas
produced is a sustainable fuel for direct burning for power generation.
Doing this is carbon positive, it uses only renewable resources, it
replaces fossil fuel use. It will reduce climate change.
Put this all together and you have real sustainability. A way of living
without climate change, and without jeopardising the lives of later
generations from global warming.
To find out more about more about where you can buy sustainable (peat
free) compost visit
http://www.compost-for-sale.com compost for sale web site and for
anaerobic digestion information visit
http://www.anaerobic-digestion.com
Author: Steve Evans
About the author:
Steve Evans is a waste management professional with wide interests in
sustainable living.
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