- Diverts materials from landfills and incinerators
- Allows management of organic materials close to the source
- Meets local directives for recycling and waste reduction
- Extends life of regional landfills, avoiding cost and environmental impact of new disposal facilities
- Helps reduce public and private sector solid waste management costs
- Builds support for local municipal composting programs
- Allows local operation and decreases the costs for biowaste management
- Builds the culture and know-how of composting in the community
- Keeps resources within the local community
- Builds healthier local soils
- Promotes human-scale technology, instead of large capital intensive systems
- Supports locally-grown, healthy food production, and “closed-loop” systems
- Creates a rich nutrient-filled soil amendment
- Enhances soil fertility
- Improves soil structure, thus reducing stormwater runoff and soil erosion
- Substitutes for energy-intensive fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides
- Improves plant growth, and thus carbon sequestration
- Reduces waste
- Protects the climate by cutting landfill methane emissions and creating a carbon
sink in soils - Reduces vehicle emissions by decreasing transportation distances between
material generators and compost producers and users
- Exposes community members to the concept of source-separation of food scraps
- Educates children and the general public about composting, how it is done, and
how it can be incorporated into everyday life - Creates advocates and the necessary leadership for changes in policies, laws, and
regulations - Prepares the next generation for full-scale composting as part of our way of life
- Turned windrow composting
- Bin systems
- Aerated static piles
- Passively aerated static piles
- In-vessel
- Static piles
- Vermicomposting