Category: Soil Importance

Compost for Change – My Path to a Greener Lifestyle -How We Diverted 2,205 Metric Tons of Food Waste

Are there things you try to practice daily to live a more sustainable lifestyle?

Mark and I have been on a remarkable sustainability journey for the past decade. Every day, we diligently compost our food scraps and waste. Knowing that there’s a distinction between the two is important. Food scraps are the remnants of the meals we’ve enjoyed, while food waste represents the uneaten and discarded portions. It’s alarming to realize that a staggering 40% of all food in the United States goes to waste, generating a mind-boggling 135 million tons of emissions. This colossal problem stems from the food we never even savored but instead allowed to go to waste.

Rotten fruit and vegetables, farmers waste, unsustainable agriculture concept.

When we founded Homegrown Harvest in 2011, our mission was crystal clear: to live a more sustainable lifestyle ourselves and inspire others to do the same. We embarked on a journey of selling, installing, and nurturing raised bed gardens to encourage and educate people about the significance of growing their own food. I would often take the stage to deliver engaging lectures on gardening and composting, spreading the message of sustainability far and wide.

Composting, as we soon discovered, could be quite a challenging endeavor. It had its fair share of messiness, odors, and time-consuming aspects. If not done correctly, it could turn into a toxic mess, attracting critters from all corners of the woods. We initially followed the traditional cold process, mixing, mashing, and repeating, but it took an eternity to obtain usable compost. Winter posed another obstacle, making composting nearly impossible depending on where one lived. The barriers to ease and success were abundant, frustrating our composting ambitions.

“Composting is not only about recycling waste; it’s about creating life. It’s a way of honoring the cycle of nature and nourishing the earth that sustains us.”

-Beth Ojczyk, Composting enthusiast

While running Homegrown Harvest, I constantly sought out companies offering sustainable solutions. That’s when I stumbled upon a great Canadian company that manufactured a game-changing machine called FoodCycler. No larger than a bread machine, this compact device could sit right on your kitchen counter, transforming food scraps and waste into compost. With FoodCycler, you can instantly replenish your garden with nutrient-rich compost. Collecting your food scraps and waste in the cast iron container, starting the process in the FoodCycler, the machine would heat the food, eliminating harmful molds and bacteria, and pulverize it into compost. The beauty of it was that even meat, poultry, and fish scraps were welcome, bones included. Vitamix acquired the company a few years back, revamping the design, and while we have yet to try the new version, it’s heartening to witness companies focusing on such innovative products. I’ve heard of another company called Lume with a similar product, but I have yet to have the chance to explore it. It’s incredibly inspiring to witness these companies addressing a solvable problem, offering consumers a tangible way to live more sustainably and reduce their carbon footprint.

During our early FoodCycler days, we were still raising three kids, two in high school and one living with us. As a family of five, our garbage output was substantial. However, with two FoodCyclers running daily, we found solace in having a system that worked for us before moving to New Hampshire. Given the local wildlife, harsh winters, and subzero temperatures, outdoor composting was simply out of the question.

Our town boasts an impressive recycling and refuse center, segregating our waste into at least eight categories. We separate burnable items, including food scraps and waste, aluminum foil, batteries, plastic, glass, cans, cardboard, and newspapers/magazines. This comprehensive recycling system occupies three of my kitchen cabinets and requires a minimum of two trash cans per room, even in the bathrooms. Everything that ascends the mountain eventually makes its way back down. By subtracting food scraps and waste, we significantly reduce the amount of garbage we haul to the dump each week.

It’s vital to understand that when food ends up in landfills, it generates methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. People often overlook this fact, assuming that since food is biodegradable, there’s no harm in tossing it in the garbage—it’s not like plastic, right? Unfortunately it doesn’t work out that way. The problem lies in the way landfills operate. Initially, food waste undergoes aerobic decomposition, releasing minimal methane in the first year. However, the trouble arises afterward when anaerobic conditions set in, and bacteria decompose the waste, producing copious amounts of methane as the food slowly breaks down.

Landfill with burning trash piles. Environment pollution concept. Birds flying over the trash dump

Sadly, landfills and wastewater globally contribute to a staggering 67 million metric tons of methane emissions, accounting for 20% of all methane released. The climate impact of methane is significant, as it possesses global warming potential 25 times higher than carbon dioxide and is a whopping 84 times more potent in the first two decades.

The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that throwing away just one pound of food results in a staggering 3.8 pounds of methane gas. Applying this calculation to our composting efforts, Mark and I conservatively estimate that we composted approximately 1.5 pounds of food scraps and waste daily, which adds up to at least 547.5 pounds of food per year. Over ten years, we prevented a jaw-dropping 5,475 pounds or 2,205 metric tons of food scraps and waste from reaching the landfill. That’s thousands of tons—tremendous amounts of sustainable impact. This equates to 20,805 pounds or 9.437 metric tons (10.4 short tons) of methane we diverted from polluting our atmosphere.

Nowadays, whenever I travel, a sense of guilt washes over me when I have to dispose of food scraps or waste into a non-compostable bin. It’s one of the simplest ways everyone can contribute to a more sustainable lifestyle and care for our planet. Our kids, too, have embraced the benefits of the FoodCycler, even using it in their apartments. They’ve discovered it’s cleaner than letting food waste sit around in the garbage can; even throwing the compost in the trash is a better alternative than filling the landfill. I hope more companies focus on creating manageable and affordable home composting solutions. Moreover, companies in the food industry should be held accountable for composting, considering the significant amount of food waste generated by restaurants and other food-related businesses. Adopting simple measures like these could result in a substantial reduction in methane emissions.

Renowned environmentalist Wangari Maathai once said, “In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.” Living a sustainable lifestyle is our opportunity to embrace this new level of consciousness and leave a positive mark on our planet for generations.

The Importance of Soil

This past year, as part of our journey into meditation and living a more mindful life, Mark and I began listening to talks and lectures covering topics about Buddhism, Taoism, spirituality… The app Insight Timer which is our go-to app for all things mediations also has a number of courses and talks. The talks vary in length depending on topic and teachers- some as short as 4 minutes long, others over an hour.

One of the teachers we follow is Sadhguru. Sadhguru and the Isha Foundation are dedicated to raising human consciousness and fostering global harmony through individual transformation. Sadhguru (Jagadish “Jaggi” Vasudev) started teaching yoga in southern India in 1982. He established the Isha Foundation ten years later. According to their website as part of their mission, “the foundation offers a variety of programs that provide methods for anyone to attain physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. Its offerings allow participants to deepen their experience of life, and reach their ultimate potential.”

Sadhguru gives great talks – he has a wonderful sense of humor which you don’t expect from an Indian yogi. “Stop Limiting Life’s Possibility”, A Crash Course to Become More Receptive”, Enjoy the Creation” and “Inner Engineering” are just a few of the wonderful talks he has on Insight Timer. It was Mark who always does the deep diving and found Sadhguru’s website which introduced us to the Isha Foundation and his other projects.

Specifically, my ears perked up when I started to hear him discuss the importance of soil. I was a research analyst who covered the agribusiness and water sectors in another lifetime. During this time, I first learned about the importance of our soil and how our global soil is in trouble. Soil degradation is not just a problem that Americans face but also a worldwide issue.  So when I heard Sadhguru talking about it, I was intrigued.

” Save Soil – Conscious Planet is a global movement launched by Sadhguru to save soil from extinction, and bring the necessary policies to address the catastrophic issue facing humanity.

This movement has garnered support from global leaders including Marc Benioff, Jane Goodall, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and institutions such as United Nations – Convention to Combat Desertification, World Economic Forum, World Food Programme, Food & Agriculture Organization of United Nations.”

#Savesoil

Yesterday was the first day of spring! A day that everybody starts to look at the ground more in anticipation of the arrival of the beautiful colorful flowers which grace our earth. Others are testing their soil and preparing their beds for planting.

Sadhguru began a quest to bring more awareness to people about the importance of our earth’s soil. Yesterday he embarked on a 100-day journey from the United Kingdom to India. 26 countries, 30,000 kilometers on his motorcycle. Sadhguru has worked for two decades to bring awareness to this soil crisis.

In 2004 he started the Project GreenHands initiative which resulted in 35 million saplings being planted over the years. They even hold the Guinness World Record for most saplings planted in a day. 6,284 trees were planted across 27 districts in Tamil Nadu, India in 2006. During the three day event, 852,587 trees were planted.

Too many people don’t fully comprehend why it is imperative to focus our attention on the global soil crisis. Sadhguru continues his mission to raise conscious awareness of the importance of our soil so that there will be nutritional soil to grow food for generations to come.

He has asked people to help him raise awareness about the soil crisis by talking about it or with your friends and family in person or on social media. I join this him in this mission – I have understood the importance of our soil for decades and have been frustrated with how our world seems to take it for granted.

When Mark and I ran our business, Homegrown Harvest, we started it to help to make it easier for people to grow some of their own food. We taught people about the quality of their soil and how commercial agriculture has decimated our farmlands with chemicals, over-fertilization, mono-cropping, and destroying the microbial organisms with heavy machinery.

I gave many talks at local libraries and clubs to help educate people about the degradation of our farmlands, encouraging people to grow some of their own food so that they will be able to increase the nutritional quality of what they eat by planting in healthy soil.

We also made it a point to teach people to be gentler with their soil and not use root-tillers that destroy the microbial organisms which are so important to good soil.

Awareness is just one step in the right direction; however, I feel that everyone can make an effort towards saving our soil each day, simply by composting their food waste. Landfills are one of the largest anthropogenic sources of the methane gas produced by this world. Food waste is about 22% of what ends up in landfills and it can not organically decompose which results in the output of methane gas. Composting food waste would keep food waste out of landfills and would nutritionally benefit the environment’s soil.

Another way that people can make a difference is by helping to plant more trees. Today is International Day of Forests, a day in which we should reflect on the importance of our global forests. Trees are a crucial ingredient in helping our lands maintain healthy soil. Their roots help maintain the soil structure, helping to reduce erosion. Check out the National Wildlife Federation’s article How Trees Make A Difference to learn more.