Composting

In my view, composting is one of the best things a person can do to reduce their environmental impact - but it depends on your location, in some places it's easier, in other places it's harder.

The concept itself is simple. Instead of taking up landfill space with organic material, return it to the earth! Then it can be used to grow new life.

But execution is harder. In the Seattle area, there are three weekly services - garbage, recycling, and composting. So we're lucky that we can just put food scraps in biodegradable bags and put them in the compost bin; not much of a lifestyle change. Then the food scraps are taken to, say Cedar Groves. Below is a video of a tour of Cedar Groves' composting facility. It's awesome - huge mounds of composting piles, with custom sheets on top to protect the compost and microbes from rain and snow, as well as huge machinery to move material around and make sure there's enough water and oxygen for the microbes doing the composting.

However, I do admire those who compost their own food scraps for their own gardens; such a neat way of doing everything yourself! But my dream is one where throughout the entire country and world, where everyone has a convenient way to dispose of food scraps one way or another, and if many people are like me, then self-composting isn't a scaleable solution...

Anyway, things I'd love to learn more about are composting rates around the country and world, and the efforts being made to expand them. I'm aware of many environmental organizations fighting to protect wildlife and nature; but I'm unaware of organizations specifically devoted to composting, I wonder if it's worthy enough...