Climate Change Connections: Nature leads the way

Nature is a cycle we work within — to replenish nature.

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“My whole life had been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God’s presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that lets you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first compost heap!” –Bette Midler

Once again Mother Nature is doing her job. This time it is as a supreme composter. Composting is nature’s way of recycling. When composting, Mother Nature uses various bacteria, fungi, and insects that naturally inhabit the soil, so it is a win-win situation for all involved. We can follow that lead. In this case, it is to mitigate climate change, as we set about protecting ourselves and our planet from disastrous harm. 

Composting is the answer to many problems with climate change that we are facing, and the beauty of composting is that there is already a blueprint for how to do it, and a way to see how it works. It is right in front of us, nature exploding with visuals. Composting allows us to be like nature, following a natural prevention program. 

In composting, we are creating natural mulch, and this mulch is amazing! It is nutrient-rich, it conserves water by retaining water, and it reduces the need for pesticides and fertilizer. There’s even more! It also prevents soil erosion, and sequesters the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the soil. In addition, as composting helps the soil retain water, this is important for farming as we face more drought conditions. 

Nature is extremely efficient at composting, as all things organic decompose eventually. She wastes not, and is continuously recycling. The processes of growth and the processes of decay balance one another, and greatest care is taken to store rainfall. 

We can follow Mother Nature’s lead and be as dramatically efficient as she is. An example is keeping our waste out of landfills, which are the third-largest source of human-generated methane emissions here in our country. (Methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.) What if the whole world followed this preventative solution?

My friend Woody Filley, manager of the Organics Recovery Program, shared some of his thoughts with me about composting and keeping food recycling local: “How much trash do you think we dispose of on M.V. every year? Do you know where it goes? In the old days we used to bury it in the backyard. Then we decided that there was too much, so we created the town dumps. Then we started to realize that some of the stuff we were throwing away was not good, and that it was starting to affect our drinking water. So then we started to ship it off-Island, either to a landfill or a waste-to-energy facility. That is where we are today. In 2022 we shipped off more than 36,000 tons of waste. Approximately 24,000 tons of it was municipal solid waste, normal trash from households and businesses. Another 12,000 tons were from construction and demolition waste.”

Woody added, “The people who keep the ‘trash machine’ working have to face ferry reservations, boats being canceled and the trash backing up, people not putting things in where they are supposed to go, people mixing contaminants with their loads. These workers have to fix these problems, and they do such a good job.” 

Woody continued, “Many of the things we throw away could easily be repurposed right here on M.V. A good example of this is food waste. It is estimated that we throw away 6,000 tons of food a year. That would fill more than 200 tractor-trailers that head off-Island. There is a group (M.V. Organics Recovery) that has been working with the Island Grown Initiative farm to compost some of the food waste. Over 1,000 tons of food waste has been converted over the years into high-quality compost. This has been used to reinvigorate the soils on the farms for high-yield food production. By composting locally, the need for importing compost has been limited. Also, the high quality of the compost is known because the local producers choose the ingredients.”

Woody concluded, “Unfortunately, trying to scale the IGI project into an Island-wide commercial-scale program has been a challenge. However, we are still in pursuit of reducing the number of trucks hauling off-Island (lowering carbon impact) a locally made product that is cheaper and better for our soils, and keeping the recycling circle of food intact. Plans for right now are to no longer have the IGI composter in service as of Sept. 1. However, we are aggressively exploring alternative sites.”

Nature is calling us — follow her!

Suggestions:

  • Keep your eyes peeled for the word “compostable” on labels.
  • Google “composting,” or seek out a local authority on the subject and begin your own composting customs. Example: “Roxanne Backyard Composting videos.”
  • Go to the library and find adult and or children’s books on composting, and share these in discussions of how to apply it to your family.