[greenyes] Comparing Incineration to Composting

["Peter Anderson" <anderson@no.address>]

            I maintain a landfill listserve that, this past week, had a 
query about incineration v. composting, in view of all of the putative 
life-cycle studies in recent days claiming that the two are equivalent.  To 
which Gerry Gillespie from Australia, an expert on composting, made the 
following reply that I thought Greenyesers would thoroughly enjoy.  Rarely 
have these thoughts been so eloquently stated.

                                                                             
                        Peter




Dear all,

Unfortunately composting, like incineration or landfill is seen as one of a 
range of end-of-pipe solutions for the perceived waste problem and it is 
never given its true worth.

If all three of these 'solutions' are evaluated from a life cycle assessment 
perspective, composting will always be way out in front.

The compost cycle does not finish when the compost is made. The compost 
cycle finishes when the organic material with its precious load of fungi, 
bacteria and nutrient is returned to farm land to replace the materials 
mined from the farmland through agricultural processes.

Composting should not be regarded simply as a process that provides a 
solution to a waste problem.

The return of quality organic products such as compost to our lands is the 
only possible way we will ever have sustainable agriculture.

For those of you unfamiliar with farming consider that it takes 60 to 90 
minerals, nutrients and trace elements, in balance to grow a plant - plants 
feed animals - all flesh is grass.

All of that product is taken from the farm as produce and in the manner 
which most factory farming is conducted today, only three chemicals, 
nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium is returned to replace the 60 to 90 taken 
away.

Could you run your home or your business like that and succeed? The figures 
tell a story of degradation!

Not only is composting cost competitive with any other means of waste 
disposal as a process, but in addition, when the product gets to the farm is 
also gives the community and the farmer the following;

Increased yield - Improved crop quality - Reduced water use - Improved water 
efficiency - Improved soil structure - Increased microbial activity - 
Reduced nutrient leakage - Reduced fertiliser costs - Reduced erosion - 
Carbon sequestration  and increased land value, to name but a few.

All of these benefits have a measurable commercial and social value.

The comparison between incineration and composting is, at its heart, a 
choice between death and life.

Incineration is the total destruction of organic materials - because only 
organic material burns - its outputs are heat, overpriced electricity and 
cancer.

The outputs of composting are the preservation of humanity, quality of life, 
quality food and the future.

We constantly speak of waste, recycling and sustainability when we should be 
discussing composting, agriculture and survivability.

Soil is literally the mother of us all - many of the nations which have been 
destroyed before us are gone because they ignored her.

Landfilling is negative, incineration is dangerous - composting is the only 
road home.

Regards,

Gerry Gillespie