[permaculture] Municipal Compost

Paul Cereghino paul.cereghino at comcast.net
Wed Jan 10 17:10:42 EST 2007


Daimen,

A batch (or more) of Seattle municipal yard waste compost was 
contaminated by a preemergent herbicide that prevented seedlings from 
germinating.  The city started screening for organic compounds, and have 
been very assuring (imagine that..), now that visibility has dropped I 
don't know if vigilance has likewise dropped.  Without source control 
the toxic issue will not go away.  I would prefer yard waste compost 
over sewerage sludge compost, But then I would prefer just about any 
other source of digested organic matter over those products (farm 
manures, mushroom compost, zoo compost, etc).  I have found composts are 
typically very raw, rich in wood and should not be counted on for 
nutrient supply or as a replacement for topsoil (after the fine organics 
decompose/oxidize, with good growth resulting, what is left is cellulose 
which is harder to grow in).  In urban sites i'd likely be more worried 
about lead and PAH contamination in soils, and if providing a 
professional service, I would test for lead - in some ways the crap in 
the compost might be the least of our worries.  I have often used urban 
industrial composts in landscaping and restoration projects and from a 
project management/short term economic perspective have found them an 
effective source of organic matter.

I have always been amused by the idea that taking our organic matter 
putting it in a plastic can or paper bag, paying someone to drive it 
around town in a truck, so that someone can use a bunch of internal 
combustion engines to grind, irrigate, supplement, and turn, so they can 
put it in plastic bags so we can drive it around town once or twice 
more, so we can spend our family income to put it back in our garden, is 
considered a sustainable and 'green' activity.

Consider food waste burial (AKA bastard trenching and the like) and 
cover croping as a replacement to composting.  Food waste streams are 
easy to find in cities (resturaunts and green grocers) but can be 
logistically difficult to secure.  Neighborhood sources like grass 
clippings and leaves (or your neighbors food waste) can be retrieved 
using food energy and a wheelbarrow.  I'd recommend annual leaf 
gathering and summer grass clipping mulch as part of an integrated 
organic matter program.

Paul, Olympia, WA

tonitime at juno.com wrote:

>Greetings, Daimen!
>    Before moving to our remote farm in KY Appalachia, i lived in
>Sacramento, CA - where they have a big muni compost project.  We all put
>our trimming, and garden debris onto the street and it was picked up and
>hauled away weekly to the compost project thruout the whole city.  One
>time i did get some, tho i usually found i could make enough homemade
>when i was a yard gardener, growing my family's vegies and ornamentals.  
>   I had one of two problems occur:  Invasive weed seed from other places
>that didn't decompose along with alot of wood chips that meant nitrogen
>supplementing in my garden.  
>Other folk have stated that we have no control over other toxic
>substances used on the yards the stuff came from (herbicides, pesticides,
>and non-organic fertilizers.  
>As i chose to garden with organic methods, using stuff from other places
>became unacceptable.
>Toni
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