WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO COMPOST?
The balanced operation of the material cycle in nature is a vittal issue for sustainable living. Because the continuity of the ecosystem and life is only possible with the protection of the natural balance. For this purpose, it is very important to compost all organic wastes (agricultural, animal, domestic, etc.) and return them to the soil in this way. Yes, it’s not just humans who produce organic waste. Other living things in nature also produce an abundance of organic waste. Other living things in nature also produce an abundance of organic waste, which is composted by microorganisms and other living things.
Composting in nature occurs slowly and over large areas. However, it is not possible to compost large amount of organic waste produced by humans in a natural way. Today, people also send the organic wastes they produce to landfills. Sending organic waste to landfills means releasing methans gas into the atmosphere. Methane gas is a greenhouse gas that increase global warming 25 times more than CO2. To this can be added the CO2 emitted by truck, the mixing of seawage with groundwater and the negative effects of waste on living things.
Compost, on the other hand, is a very important resource in increasing the fertility of the soil and the quality of the products grown on it. By sending organic waste to landfills our soils are deprived of a very valuable resource such as compost. However, the general character of Turkish soils is that amount of organic matter is low. While the amount of organic matter in a normal soil should be around 4-6%, this rate is below 1% or around 1% in most of our soils. On other words, most of our country’s land is infertile.
Although artificial fertilizers are used at an increasing rateevery year, one of the reasons why no yield increase can be achieved and the products are far from their natural tastes in the low amount of organic matter in the soil. With all kinds of plant products that are harvested and removedfrom the field, we also removed from the field, we also remove the valuable plant nutrients that exist in the soil. By continuous cultivation of the soil, the natural structure of the soil, deteriorates and especially the organic sunbtances that hold the soil together are broken down and the soil structure deteriorates physically, chemically and biologically.
One of the preferred methods to improve these deteriorating properties of the soil over time is to return the organic matter removed from the soil to the soil with the use of compost. In other words, by giving back to nature what we take from nature, we both reduce global warming and envionmental pollution and give back the valuable nutrient necessary for plants to the soil. So composting is like a seesaw; If we compost, the bad environmental impact are reduced and the soil quality increases, if we don’t compost, the soil quality decreases and the bad environmental impacts increase.
