THE COMPOST – A METHOD TO RESTORE THE ORGANIC WASTE PRODUCTS IN THE NATURAL CIRCUIT

Urban Farm DB summary

This descriptive article on composting states that about half of household waste consists of food remains, vegetable, and garden waste, and that over 50% of waste is organic material that ends up in storage sites, cesspools, or is burned, causing significant pollution. As an alternative, it describes transforming organic material through microbial, biochemical, chemical and physical processes into a humus-like material called compost. Producing quality compost requires managing the pile's dimensions, humidity, structure, and composition so decomposition agents (bacteria, fungi, mites, springtails, woodlice, worms, millipedes) have an ideal, nutrient-rich substrate; these agents need nitrogen ("green" elements, from food remains, cut grass, and green leaves) alongside carbon ("brown" elements, from wood chips, dry leaves, and sawdust), maintained at roughly a 30:1 brown-to-green ratio through alternating layers. The article states that producing compost in schools can bring the whole school community together for environmental work, contributing to natural resource recirculation, community education about compost's benefits, a shift in cultural attitudes toward waste, reduced food-remainder volume from school canteens, student involvement in extracurricular activities, and fertile soil for school gardens and planting. The abstract text is truncated at the end, cutting off its description of composting's benefits as a fertilizer.