What Are The Benefits of Composting?

There are numerous economic, environmental, and social benefits of composting. It’s also an easy and effective way to get rid of your waste. 

Composting breaks down organic matter and transforms it into fertile soil. It’s a highly effective way to get rid of virtually any food scrap, organic waste, or yard waste.

Creates Better Soil

Composted soil is rich in nutrients and the perfect foundation to grow vegetables, fruits, or beautiful flower gardens. It’s a far better option than synthetic fertilizers or chemicals because organic material doesn’t alter the soil structure. 

Unlike your organic compost pile filled with yard and kitchen waste, synthetic or chemical fertilizers can have serious health consequences for people and pets. 

With an effective composting program, you can fertilize and aerate the soil allowing plants to get all of the nutrients they need and fortifying their root systems.

Synthetic compounds only make the soil better for a short time, but composting can change the dynamics of a piece of land in the long run. So you’re getting immediate and long-term benefits instead of a short-term solution with possible health consequences. 

Improves Water Supply

Compost is water-dense, holding up to twenty times its weight in water, making the ideal organic matter fertilizer for places where there’s a lot of sandy soil. This water goes straight into the existing soil, helping plants thrive and contributing to the underground water table. 

The water filters through layers of soil and rock and makes its way back to local ponds, lakes, springs, and eventually the ocean. Water that runs through your compost might help make our seas cleaner, and healthy oceans affect everything from the food supply to the weather.

Unfortunately, if you use chemical fertilizers in your soil, the opposite is true. The water that runs through your soil will be tainted by chemicals and synthetic materials, eventually making its way back to our oceans and polluting them. 

Cuts Back on Soil Erosion

One of the key benefits of composting is that it reduces soil runoff and stops erosion. Soil erosion cuts back on farmable land and can cause major natural disasters too. Since compost is so water-dense, the ground doesn’t erode.

The situation is a win-win because it keeps the soil where it’s supposed to be and makes the land far more fertile for growing crops. 

Saves Money on Garbage Bills

Composting is cost-effective for you too. It saves you plenty of money on your garbage bills and can save money on waste transportation and disposal. By composting, you’ll be doing something good for your pocketbook and helping to reduce costs on a local level.

If enough people compost, you might even see your local taxes go down. There are both financial and moral incentives to participate in composting and encourage your neighbors to do so as well. You might also be able to create a communal garden.

Produces Healthy Food

Arguably, the most significant benefit of composting is that it produces tons of healthy food. Since the soil is rich in carbon dioxide and nutrients, it’s a fertile backdrop for plants to flourish. 

Although fertilizers, pesticides, and other synthetic ingredients might work in the short term, they create worse soil later on. By using organic matter instead, you’re making a healthy environment that will pay huge dividends now and later.

Great soil means excellent crops. Fruits and vegetables grown on composted soil tend to be much more nutrient-dense and healthier. Best of all, you can use the rinds and peels from your harvest to create another compost pile and start the process all over again! 

Creates Urban Gardens

Food deserts are a huge problem, and composting can help to alleviate it. Since you can compost virtually anywhere, it’s easy to create urban gardens that the whole community can enjoy and benefit from. 

Urban gardens produce delicious, healthy food, and they can be a great way to bring the whole community together. Since people are directly involved in cultivating and creating their own food, they have a sense of pride in what they grow. They’re more likely to eat good food and build healthier lifestyle habits.

Urban gardens are also excellent ways to get children involved in, and excited about, food production. They can teach kids healthy habits from a very young age and introduce them to a wide range of fruits and vegetables.

People who have apartments can also create their own compost bin. Unlike traditional farming, composting doesn’t require a lot of land. It’s easy to build a small, functional garden right on your balcony simply by using nutrient-rich compost.

Helps Farmers

Composting directly helps those that give us our primary food source: farmers! Since composting with organic matter like kitchen waste is more effective and less costly than commercial methods, farmers can grow better crops at a reduced overall cost.

Through composting, farmers don’t have to pay for synthetic fertilizers or worry that erosion will eat away at their valuable land or cause unsafe conditions. They can also command a higher price for their crops. 

More and more people are realizing the danger of commercial fertilizers and opting for crops grown by alternative methods. 

Reduces Landfill Waste

By far, the best reason to give composting a try is that it substantially reduces landfill waste. Overflowing landfills are hurting the planet, and with climate change-related disasters happening more and more frequently, we need to be better stewards of the earth.

So much recyclable or compostable waste is thrown out every year. By simply creating a separate pile for compostable items, you’re doing your part to help keep the world sustainable for future generations. 

Since almost all organic material, such as lawn waste, kitchen scraps, and even things like pet fur, can be composted, it’s amazing how big of an impact one person can have!

These are just a few of the many benefits of composting. Since it’s easy to do, and you can compost in virtually every space, there’s no reason not to give it a try.