Composting Problems

Composting Problems / What's Compost

Composting, often described as nature’s way of recycling, is the biological process of breaking up of organic waste such as food waste, manure, leaves, grass trimmings, paper, worms, and coffee grounds, etc., into an extremely useful humus-like substance by various micro-organisms including bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes in the presence of oxygen.

Actinomycetes are similar to fungus in the way they grow and spread, but its distinguishing elements are that the types of materials they are efficient at decomposing. The active nature in this microscopic bacteria and the sheer number present (about 10 million per 1 gram of soil), make them highly effective at breaking down materials like tree bark, newspaper, and other hard organic material.

Today, the use of composting to turn organic wastes into a valuable resource is expanding rapidly in many countries, as landfill space becomes scarce and expensive, and as people become more aware of the impact they have on the environment.

Composting Problems / Getting Educated

Nature conceives compost as part of life’s cycle but it also creates a few difficulties and problems that we should consider. Some people find it difficult to manage composting with their efforts and initiatives. The main reason is their unawareness and lack of orientation about proper composting.

Most often than not, people assume that things are hard to do because of limited knowledge but it is actually not that hard to perform, only there are factors to give importance to, which we should not miss.

Composting Problems / The Issue of Control

As decomposition happens in our daily lives, we should help through the process also. We must know how to utilize our wastes around us and how it can save the Earth. This problem is actually about human control, but there are also problems which may arise during the process of composting.

We are in the modern society so most of us live in an industrialized area already. This has been causing problem because we find it hard looking for a place for composting but actually, we only need at least a 3 feet deep, 3 feet wide compost pile to start the decomposition but in this case, you have to consider the residents around your area.

Here are some other composting problems to keep in mind...

While decomposing, your compost might disperse a bad odor while it has not yet matured.

Larger piles are not advisable because it is harder to manipulate, it needs bigger area, and it is visible to the people passing your house. We do not want it to reach the noses of our neighbors and mailman.

It also requires high temperature while decomposing. The bacteria that break down organic garbage into compost does not execute well in freezing temperature.

However, the activity of the bacteria helps increase the temperature within the compost pile even if the environment where it takes place has a cold weather, but still, it slows down the process if the environment is not hot enough for the decomposition especially if the organic matter has a lot of pathogens living in it.

Composting Problems / What is that smell?

We also find it a problem to wait for the duration of the composting process and as it continuously goes on cycle, the area where it happens, needs to be wider and wider and this had caused trouble to people with limited area for composting and the usual complaint of people who are into composting is the bad smell it creates.

To decrease the spreading of bad odor, we have to cover our compost with plastic so the smell would not leak that much.

The sour smell also known as the Ammonia odor indicates that you have put a lot of green materials on your wastes but Ammonia is only created because of absence of Carbon.

The truth is, if the compost has a proper mixture, it would not create a bad smell at all. Most people tend to be too lazy to segregate their wastes in the first place and it is the biggest problem in composting.

Composting Problems / What is that smell?

http://www.composting101.com/troubleshooting.html
http://compost.your-info-station.com/compost-problems.php
www.pca.state.mn.us/publications/w-hhw1-22.pdf

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