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SUSTAINABILITY | Read Our Commitment
We know that we need to do as much as possible to reduce our carbon footprint and live more sustainably, so it is an 'easy win' to create compost from garden and kitchen waste. Here are our reasons explained....
Composting returns valuable nutrients to the soil to improve soil quality and fertility.
The colloidal humus (the black/brown substance) in compost is packed with nutrients and water - think of humus as a sponge waiting to supply your plant roots. Humus also sticks the soil particles in that nice crumb creating loamy soil. This structure improves the oxygen flow to the roots. Roots grow stronger as they are able to take up the water and nutrients held in the soil more easily. Stronger roots mean healthy plants and more vigorous growth.
Compost increases soil microbial activity which promotes microbial root/soil interactions.
The organic matter in compost improves the soil structure (tilth) by 'lightening' soil and helping the roots to grow, giving healthier plants.
Recycling your garden and food scraps into valuable compost means that you are creating a biodiverse, nutrient-rich, slow-release, natural fertiliser without spending money on a synthetic fertiliser (or indeed shop-bought compost!).
The fact that the compost retains more moisture means that you will have to water your garden less during hot dry spells, so lower water bills.
Keeping garden and kitchen waste out of landfill means that the life of a landfill site is extended (40% of residential waste is compostable).
Using compost rather than artificial fertilisers means that nutrients are held in the ground more efficiently so that they will not run off into rivers, lakes and streams.
Compost is peat free which means no depleting of peat bogs, and the carbon sequestered in the bogs stays there.
Best of all, composting helps to rebuild soil health, and healthy soil draws down carbon from the air, therefore, helping to reduce the carbon that is causing global warming.
You can go further by adding a biochar compost activator to your compost. Biochar locks carbon into the soil, mitigating climate change.
Not only is it good for the environment but a compost activator (compost accelerator) added to your composting mix can boost plant growth and crop yield that use it by up to 100%.
Compost improves the soil's ability to retain more water which reduces the impact of drought for plants and means that less manual watering is required.
Adding the right type of compost (biochar super compost) means that your soil will hold up to 2.5 times more water than soil without it.
Composting allows garden and food waste to breakdown naturally without creating extra harmful methane greenhouse gases. If garden and food waste are put into landfill they break down anaerobically which creates methane, an extremely harmful greenhouse gas which is 21 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.
Composting at homes means that there are no carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles which would be used to transport waste to large compost sites or landfill.
Producing artificial fertilisers requires a significant amount of energy created by natural gas, coal or oil, and that is even before they are transported across the world. It is estimated that the process used to make ammonia for nitrogen fertiliser consumes 2 - 3% of all the global energy used in a year. Replacing artificial fertilisers with compost simply cuts the need for production and therefore automatically reduces carbon emissions.
