[cats3]

When you get to gardeners.com, you will find recipes for compost, compost bins, strategies of innovative gardeners and more info.

I've used this site for a long time.
I like it because it's not just selling products but educating as well...

[cats3]

An idea from the US Environmental Protection Agency
- nice for the holiday season (and all year)
food waste recovery hierarchy for managing food waste:

* Reduce the volume of food waste you generate—buy and prepare only what you will sell or use.
* Give to those in need by donating your extra food to food banks, soup kitchens, and shelters or other charities.
* Feed animals by sending food scraps to accepting farms.
* Donate waste oils and food scraps to industrial companies who convert them into new products, such as cosmetics, pet food, fuel, and energy.
* Compost food scraps and yard trimmings.
* Discard any remaining scraps as a last resort

[cats3]

Some other benefits of composting:
#Keeps organic wastes out of landfills.
# Protects soils from erosion.
# Assists pollution remediation.
#Compost helps cleanup (remediate) contaminated soil

#Compost helps prevent pollution

Composting organic materials that have been diverted from landfills ultimately avoids the production of methane and leachate formulation in the landfills. Compost has the ability to prevent pollutants in stormwater runoff from reaching surface water resources. Compost has also been shown to prevent erosion and silting on embankments parallel to creeks, lakes, and rivers, and prevents erosion and turf loss on roadsides, hillsides, playing fields, and golf courses.

#Using compost can reduce the need for water, fertilizers, and pesticides. It serves as a marketable commodity and is a low-cost alternative to standard landfill cover and artificial soil amendments. Composting also extends municipal landfill life by diverting organic materials from landfills and provides a less costly alternative to conventional methods of remediating (cleaning) contaminated soil.

- from USA Environmental Protection Agency

[cats3]

My local Whole Foods Market sells their own store made compost from store scraps. I tried it in my garden and my garden was thriving!

My understanding is that Whole Foods Markets are in the USA, UK and Canada.

I love to shop at socially responsible stores!

[cats3]

On a global level, I would imagine that composting in developing nations, improves living conditions by improved waste management, improved soils yield more, provides a much needed source of income and potential for trade, improves lives of local people and more...
Probably the World Bank has a statement about this somewhere...

[cats3]

Last thought at this time on the matter - composting also likely cuts down on greenhouse gas emissions due to the methane...

[Lonesomelarry]

Being a Montreal resident collecting compost is great but what the city really needs to do is pass a bylaw forcing business to recyle their cardboad and cans. I live downtown beside five resturants and the amount I see hauled away each week is stagering.

[Raptor235]

We have that system here in Toronto it works great takes a little effort but in the end it saves a lot of garbage... you could also compost the organic garbage.

[workinman]

i agree with larry.. the company i work for fills a dumpster every week with carboard and when i brought it up to the boss about recycling i got the ever famous 'who's going to pay for that?!' they waste thousands of dollars there every month with the inefficient way they run things but whatever...

[Raptor235]

Same thing here workinman... we just had our office expanded, after one year... meaning we expanded about a year ago as well bought furniture and now they threw all of it away and bought new furniture... someone came and picked some of it up but still some ended going into the trash... I can't believe how companies as they get bigger they waste more and more money and cause more pollution..