http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weedflower.JPG

We’ve been talking a lot about all kinds of things related to bokashi.  In our last blog we spoke of Diogenes (the Dog) and summarized in our view how being uninformed or applying science inappropriately results in very devastating results  (Prairie Dog Science….Curbside Food Waste, Kitchen Scraps, Green Cones, Composting & Heavy Metals!).  I couldn’t help but note the beauty in the tiny  Dog violet (Viola conspersa),  which is considered a common weed.  This touches again on that interesting and peculiar way we try to tidy up in our minds how the world should be characterized.  I wanted to know how people go about defining a weed.  So here is the Wikipedia explanation.

A weed is a plant that someone thinks is bad, because it is growing in the wrong place. Trees are not often called weeds, only smaller plants.

Someone may grow a plant because it has beautiful flowers, but other people may think that this plant is a weed for some reason. This may be for one of these reasons:

• it has pollen that makes them sneeze,
• it spreads seeds which will grow quickly,
• the roots go too far under the ground and can cause damage to houses or pipes,
• the roots spread quickly,
• the plant has poisonous berries,
• the plant has liquid (sap) in it which can hurt a person’s skin,

If someone is farming a plant and it then moves outside the farm, the plant may then be called a weed.

Some plants are very hard to stop once they start growing. These are called invasive weeds.

Weed is also a name for any wild plant, one that people do not use for anything.

Speaking of a tidy up world………it is clearly evident more and more people are being told they have to change the way they manage their food waste.  Are they being given the best advice?

San Francisco will fine Food Waste Violators…

According to the San Francisco chronicle, residents in and around San Francisco are being told they have to make a change in the way they handle their food waste.

San Francisco Chronicle

The Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 Tuesday to approve Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposal for the most comprehensive mandatory composting and recycling law in the country. It’s an aggressive push to cut greenhouse gas emissions and have the city sending nothing to landfills or incinerators by 2020.

“San Francisco has the best recycling and composting programs in the nation,” Newsom said, praising the board’s vote on a plan that some residents had decried as heavy-handed and impractical. “We can build on our success.”

This is a little like the weed problem…….by whose definition is it the best recycling and composting program in the nation?

They are correct that something has to be done about reducing greenhouse gases and food waste going to a landfill is not good.  The policy is heavy handed and probably impractical too.  The irony is that no one has shown in the analysis that the volume of greenhouse gas produced by composting is truly less than that which would be produced in a landfill.  Although it is true that a lot of methane is produced in the landfill which is far more heat producing than carbon dioxide, it is not clear that all of the food waste in a landfill is oxidized or methane converted.

We know that in composting on an industrial scale all of the food waste is set to be oxidized as efficiently as can be managed.  It is quite possible the total amount of carbon dioxide produced with industrial composting exceeds that which would have been produced in a landfill.  I’m not advocating putting food waste into landfills……..just pointing out that we are once again making assumptions without true measurements.

But lets be clear…….there is a superior alternative that was not even considered.  Bokashi fermentation is far easier and more efficient.  Every resident could side step the problem and the city planners would be happy.  With bokashi fermentation the food waste is put to better use and the greenhouse gas problem related to residential food waste goes immediately to zero.

As we’ve demonstrated in experiments and practice, when the food waste is processed in a fermenter where all the oxygen is excluded under acidic conditions with specialized microbes, a pickled food waste is acquired within a very short time ( about 1 week).

That pickled food waste is then placed in the ground where soil microbes take over.  They rapidly metabolize the pickled food waste converting it to a soil rich in nutrients and microbes that are beneficial for your plants.  By fermenting (pickling) your food waste you diverted it from the garbage cans or bins (no possible fines folks) putting it to good use.

What are the benefits?  No smelly food waste, no vermin, rats or insects.  The immediate elimination of greenhouse gases because none of the food waste is being oxidized.  It is 10 times faster than composting.  Now you get a credit back on waste hauling because you reduce your can size and schedule for pick up.  No turning or working a pile.  No petro fuel is needed to run the equipment and machinery involved in composting.  Now there is an alternative!

I want to commend those who see the need to change our ways.  But I hope they will expand their knowledge and become better informed about how we can do it better.  There are great and simple solutions to this food waste problem.

Myths and tips…

I’d like to touch on a few myths and give a few tips to those who are discovering how easy it is to bokashi ferment their food waste.

Almost everyone now understands that we’ve got to get away from landfills.  The food waste problem will never go away.  It’s going to get a lot worse.  Diverting to composting seems to some people a logical solution.  It might be even more attractive if we were all vegetarians.  But we aren’t and a lot of the food waste now being diverted to composting sites will putrefy.

Sites are smelly.  Rats and vermin are always attracted to these sites.  A lot of land is wasted because it must be dedicated to the process and that land is essentially a toxic dumping place.  You don’t want a composting site to be near your house.  Are these sites safe and non-hazardous?  They are polluting on a massive scale………so the idea that they are good because they produce compost for our gardens and parks is pretty silly.

The oceans are now being acidified.  Carbon dioxide is absorbed into the ocean forming carbonic acid and this subtle but increasing level of acid (lowering of the ocean pH) profoundly changes the ocean environment.  Coral reefs and sea life in general will be subject to impacts that are destructive and most probably not going to make the world a better place. Global Scientists Draw Attention To Threat Of Ocean Acidification

One of the world’s largest compost facilities was established in the state of Washington near the city of Everett which abuts the large body of water directly communicating with the ocean waters just off the state coast.  I can’t help but wonder if part of the explanation for the recent findings just off the coast for large changes in ocean acidification are related to the massive (tons) of carbon dioxide being produced at this site adjacent to all that salt water in the straights of Juan de Fuca. Oysters in deep trouble « Ocean acidification

It is frequently suggested that composting is good because it “sterilizes” a pile killing microbes.  We touched on this topic as well in our earlier blogs (Prairie Dog Science….Curbside Food Waste, Kitchen Scraps, Green Cones, Composting & Heavy Metals!)  It is very probable with the increased food waste entering into the compost feed stock pathogens will propagate and spread in the pile.  E. coli and Salmonella can do very well in a warm, moist and dark environment.  You may pasteurize but you certainly can not expect to kill these microbes at the non-sustained high temperatures insufficient for true sterilization that is characterized by composting.

When you bokashi ferment food waste, the pathogens even if present can not propagate or survive because the media is acidic and anaerobic.  Pickling food makes it safe because microbes that harm us can’t survive those processes and can’t grow in the acidic media.

Composters like to say it is a natural process.  It is not.  It is a man made process and I would ask anyone who believe otherwise to show us the evidence where this occurs naturally in nature.  We’ve addressed this issue many times (The Naked Truth About Compost).

Some people suggest that bokashi fermentation, because it is anaerobic probably produces methane too just like a landfill so it can’t be good.  This is false reasoning based on misinformation.  Bokashi fermentation occurs anaerobically (oxygen is excluded)…..that is true.  But the conditions are hugely different from the anaerobic process resulting in methane production.  Methane is produced by organisms called methanogens and these can only function at neutral pH.  In the acidic environment no methanogens can survive and they are never seen.  Actual measurements prove no methane is produced.

A few tips…..

Remember you can put anything organic including meat, bones, egg shells, or even paper in your fermenter to pickle and then feed the soil.  Crush your egg shells when you put them in the fermenter to make it mechanically easier to pickle.

Napkins and light paper waste materials should be wetted with water and then spread out in the fermenter like a leaf to make it easier and faster to pickle.

Corn cobs are larger items should be cut into pieces to make it process more efficiently.  It will still ultimately be metabolized by the soil microbes but you speed the process by getting if fully fermented before it goes into the soil.

Many paper plates are coated with a thin film of plastic and this will interfere with the pickling process.  Some papers have a lot of clay imbedded making it hard for the enzymes to attack the cellulose.  Soak them in water first and do some small experiments to prove they are properly being processed if you want to metabolize these paper items.  Keep in mind that certain inks have metals that would accumulate in the soil so try to minimize that problem.

Finally, I often hear people who live in high rise buildings are flats without a backyard the complaint that they can’t ferment their food waste.  You’ve got to be creative….think about your friends and neighbors.  You might be surprised at the possibilities.  Take a look at this balcony and tell me you are not impressed. (What to do with your Bokashi when you live in a flat).

I’ve been doing a lot of work to prove that we could just as easily bokashi ferment our yard waste.  Why not keep that green nitrogen rich waste on our land and put it back to good use.  It takes only 1 week to ferment all of the grass clippings and weeds.  We’ll talk more about this in the future.  But I’m going to save any dog violets should I be lucky enough to find one!

Diogenes would be right at home…even in today’s world.

How would you like to get rid of bad smells and stop the pests that go after your garbage (rats, dogs, flies and cockroaches) …and quit paying the city so much to hall the stuff away………and feel good about what you are doing for your planet?  You can put a little money in your pocket too!  It’s easy and kind of fun……..once you realize how easy it is.

You can learn a lot about bokashi fermentation if you haven’t already discovered our web-page.  The FAQ section may help you in getting a sense of how easy it is to convert waste to something useful.

http://bokashicycle.com/

We all knew it was going to happen………and now it’s true…….March 30, 2009 Seattle will make the change.

Seattle to require table-scrap recycling at homes in 2009

We know composting seems to a lot of people like a “natural” and good thing to do, but it is in fact very polluting and it is expensive.  A ton of organic waste can be converted to nutrient rich soil in about 3 weeks using bokashi fermentation and costs only about $30.  It is currently costing the city of Seattle about $140 per ton and it takes 6 or more months to get the material composted.

http://www.newrules.org/environment/seattle.pdf

If you live in Washington State near Seattle……….you can save a lot of money by opting out of the soon to be enforced recycling program.  Do you think you are paying a lot to have your garbage handled by the city?   As of March 30, 2009 the citizens of Seattle will be asked to purchase another container (for their “organic waste…..food scraps) that will need to be placed curb side each week so that the G-men can send that trash up to Cedar Grove for “composting”.  Wonder why your garbage bill is going to go up?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nicolebrodeur/2008871285_brodeur17m.html

Those who don’t live near Seattle probably know the writing is on the wall.  The G-men will come knocking….looking for more ……..money…….not garbage!

Those of you who know about bokashi fermentation already know how easy it is to mix your garbage with bokashi culture mix and let it ferment in an air tight container.  You can take all of your organic food waste (even bones, egg shells, meat, and dairy products) and convert it to fermented (pickled) waste material that will then in another 7 – 10 days in the soil make a very nutrient rich soil for planting.  Instead of composting you ferment.  We’ve talked a lot about this and know a lot of people have discovered how easy it is to convert their organic waste to valuable soil for the plants.

The Bokashi 1, 2, & 3!

Here is how easy it is.  You need to have  2 fermenters, some bokashi culture mix, a tiny bit of land for burying your fermented waste, and organic waste (food waste) that would have ended up in your garbage can had you not started your bokashi adventure.

This is going to take about 15 minutes out of your life perhaps once a month to bury the pickled waste material in the soil…………….but you will be able to reduce the size of your garbage can and the frequency of the pick up.

When you tell the garbage collectors that you won’t need such a big can or tell them to stop by less frequently because there is no garbage for them to haul off, the bill you get each month will be $10 to $20 less than what you used to pay.  That happens right away!  You now get back $120 to $240 per year.  It will cost you perhaps $40 per year to get the bokashi culture mix……….but still not a bad savings on your part!

Remember……you are also taking control and reducing greenhouse gases that would have been produced if you had let the G-men take it away.  And you get to use the great soil in your own garden.  You’ll see how much better your plants do when you get diversity back in the soil (more microbes and nutrients for the plants).

Sprinkle some bokashi culture mix in the bottom of your fermenter.  Add your table scraps and food waste for the day to the bottom of the fermenter and lightly sprinkle more bokashi culture mix over the waste you added.  Press down with the pressure plate and seal the container to exclude oxygen.

Next day, you do exactly the same.  And so on one layer at a time until the fermenter is full.  You want to drain some of the fluid off every few days….discard it down the sink or dilute it with water and add it to the house plant watering.  You can also put it on the vegetable garden plants…….gets them a lot healthier.

When the first fermenter is full, put it on the bottom and begin filling the second fermenter in the same way.  When it is full………it is time for your first dig!

This is the easy part.  The soil microbes are so hungry…..and so efficient that you can keep putting your fermented waste  in the same small area over and over if you have little land.  If you had one small plot of land about 20 feet by 20 feet, you could bury 12 tons of waste material every year for the rest of your life………and you would just get richer and richer soil for your plants.  Of course you want to get the soil wherever you have plants all mixed in over time so you can benefit all of your plants……..not just those near the enriched soil.

Dig a hole about 3 feet long and 1 foot deep the width of your shovel.  Poor the fermented waste in the hole.  Mix it with a little soil.  Cover it up and you are done until next month.  Before you finish up……..use the garden hose to rinse the fermenter.

Put enough water in the bottom of the fermenter so that you can clean the porcelain plate bottom.  By pushing down the plate and twirling it around in the water you will clean the plate bottom and walls of the fermenter.  Discard the water in the hole over your waste material that is buried.  Rinse the system again to clean everything and you are done.

You can mix this soil around with soil in your garden anytime you like to get a rich better than compost soil for your garden.  Just remember to give enough time for the fermented product to finish up when it goes into the soil.  That takes about 7 – 10 days.  You shouldn’t find any residual garbage when you dig it up after a couple of weeks if you’ve been following instructions.

So you see………it isn’t too hard to take control.  It feels good to get rid of your own organic waste.  It is a good feeling to know that you are making soil richer and safer for your plants and by doing so have immediately stopped the kind of polluting greenhouse gases that are made during the composting process.  You got your trash out of the city system…………and isn’t it great to cut your garbage bill instead of letting it gradually rise each year.  You’ll never buy one of those extra curb side containers the city wants you to get so they can send your trash to composting.

We were talking about soil, the need for diversity in soil microbes to support and sustain healthy plants, and want to focus on practices that are least likely to adversely affect our planet.

We have come to understand and appreciate that plants and microbes have long evolved and adapted wonderfully.  We spoke about the need to reduce greenhouse gases and how important it is to get the nutrients back into the soil with the least amount of effort and pollution.

It is often said that we know more about the surface of the moon, about the conditions on Mars and the solar system then we know about the oceans.  You can think of the land upon which we live and depend upon for our survival as yet another ocean so little understood.

I am going to provide you with references to two books that I would strongly recommend to readers who want to venture “underground”.  The journey is well worth the effort.   The first (David Wolfe’s wonderful in depth analysis of life beneath the surface) provides a wealth of information relating to how nutrients are passed about beneath the surface feeding microbes and plants.

Tales from the Underground: A Natural History of Subterranean Life (Paperback)

by David Wolfe

http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Underground-Natural-History-Subterranean/dp/0738206792

The second book if a wonderful reference with many studies comparing method of treating the soil and plants revealing how the use of effective microbes and bokashi fermentation can be used to improve the soil and growth conditions for plants and crops.  Here you will see many examples of side by side comparisons and instructions on how to get more from the land.

Nature Farming and Microbial Applications (Paperback)

by Hiu-lian Xu (Author), Hiroshi Umemura (Author), James F. Parr Jr

http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Farming-Microbial-Applications-Hiu-lian/dp/156022083X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1235942575&sr=1-1

Plants and crops are essential for our well being and for our survival.  Fundamentally, plants and crops receive their nutrients including water for the most part through their interaction with microbes.

Carbon dioxide and water are taken up by plants in the presence of sun light and by the photosynthetic path, they are converted to sugars. Most living things on the planet derive their energy either by the photosynthetic pathway, or by consuming products of photosynthesis.

Composite image showing the global distribution of photosynthesis, including both oceanic phytoplankton and terrestrial vegetation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis

If you take the trip underground, you will become familiar with extraordinary filamentous structures so tiny they are barely perceived by the naked eye forming networks transporting nutrients, water, and chemicals needed by both the plants and microbes.  These filamentous tubular structures are living structures that are also extracting their share of nutrients and growing as are the microbes and plants.  They form a network (mycelium), the mycorrhiza delivering and sustaining a symbiotic relationship between plant roots, microbes, and numerous other life forms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycorrhiza

There are many variations in tubular structures involved in extending the draw of materials that can be used to feed plants and crops.  Fungi and other organisms producing hypae may also transport and mobilize soil nutrients delivering them directly to roots by interpenetrations.  They in return absorb complex organics produced by the plants.

Here it is important to appreciate that the diversity of microbes including the fungi mycorrhiza, and soil bacteria require organic material they can also use to return nutrients to plants.  If the soil is devoid of either microbes or organic material needed to generate plant nutrients, the plants will of course fail. The microbes use enzymes to break down the organic substrates found in the soil.  Some of the by-products are directly transported to the plants whilst others are processed by the microbes before they are secreted and transported to the plant’s root.

Trace minerals, ions, and inorganic compounds are needed and they are in the natural state bound in the soil and immobilized.  Microbes are capable of converting nitrogen organic compounds into nitrates, complex insoluble phosphates into soluble phosphates that plants can then use in photosynthetic paths, and provide on demand virtually all of the nutrients required for healthy plants.

Plants and microbes have over many years evolved and adapted one to the other and disturbances in the soil may very adversely affect that special kind of interaction.  When inorganic fertilizers and pesticides are added to the soil, the impact can be truly harmful.

With bokashi fermentation, microbe diversity and nutrients from our waste (garbage) returns to the soil.  The organic nutrients are readily metabolized by soil microbes and delivered to plants minimizing the need to use supplemental fertilizers.  Plants are healthier and because of the microbial diversity and nutrient abundance better able to resist disease.  Growth is vigorous.

Reliance on fertilizers and pesticides to support crops and plants is a non-sustainable policy.  We believe strongly that understanding the symbiotic well adapted relationship between plants and microbes is a first step in getting away from practices that are harmful to our planet.  We can convert waste organic material by bokashi fermentation with soil microbes into the kind of product that will better serve our plants and planet.  This is accomplished without adding to our GHG problem.

In our next blog we will look more closely at the global nitrogen cycle which has been so dramatically changed with the use of fertilizers and pesticides.  A lot has been said about global warming and carbon dioxide.  With our over use of nitrogen fertilizers we are also adversely impacting the earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor’s_New_Clothes

There, I just blurted it out……….there is something untruthful, something not being said about compost.  Understanding and committing to practices that are truly sustainable takes courage, involves change, requires forethought and action but gives in return treasures for the effort.  At bokashicycle.com we are committed to educating those who really want to know the facts, and believe they will then with knowledge and good science make the planet a better place.

What I have to say today will go against a popular belief so strongly imbedded and advocated by so many that it is certain to engender retorts and denials.  But one of the great thrills in science is seeing things as they really are……seeing the truth, like the child who told the truth about the Emperor’s New Clothes in Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 tale of the swindlers.  The weavers, had declared they could manufacture the finest cloth to be imagined with colors and patterns that were not only exceptionally beautiful, but most importantly, the clothes possessed the wonderful quality of being invisible to any man who was unfit for his office or unpardonably stupid.

So we are led to believe that an important part of recycling and keeping the planet “green” is making and using compost.  We are increasingly being told that we’ve got to get the solid waste out of the landfill, that composting is good, that we should recycle our kitchen scraps, lawn clippings, etc. by composting them, and that compost is good for the soil and plants because it restores naturally what was missing.  Plants are supposed to grow better when we use compost.

City and county planners are diverting more and more solid waste to tracks of land where compost is produced and then sold back to the public for garden use.  Farmers frequently advocate composting and the use of animal manure to enrich the soil so they can obtain higher yields.  A great compost industry has evolved.  Giant earth moving machines, mixers, grinders, and trucks are used to move and manage the piles of “decomposing” organic matter that will in time be called “compost”.

Gardeners are coached and advised to use compost, to recycle their garden waste materials, and sold tumblers, bins, etc. designed to speed up the decomposition of organic matter so that the product can be used again and again in the garden.

What’s wrong with this picture?  A lot.  It’s plain to see we are headed in the wrong direction advocating compost as a sustainable process and it is certainly harming not helping the planet.

So what is compost anyway?  Some people will say it is a dark, crumbly, and earthy-smelling form of decomposing organic matter, but it is perhaps better defined as a stable humus material.  I like the Virginia Tech bulletin “Compost: What Is It and What’s It To You” pithy way of stating what it is. http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/compost/452-231/452-231.html

You can’t actually define it because no one knows exactly what it is.  We can however say a lot about the process.  When you purchase or make your compost you are getting something “earthy” at the end of the process but no two batches are ever going to be the same.

The process is well known.  You have to collect the organic material and put it in a pile. The decomposition occurs because the naturally occurring microbes in the pile are working hard to consume the mass.  They do this by oxidizing the plant material rendering in the end if all goes well a mass of humus.

There are many different types of microbes involved in the process all working together and an important part of the process is keeping the conditions in the pile right so that all of the essential microbes and fungi digesting material are healthy. During the process, because of the oxidation, the pile heats up.  The heat is important because if the pile is too cold, the microbes won’t survive or the process will be too slow.  But if the pile heats up too much, the microbes will die and then you have only a dead heap of partially decomposed organic matter.

As the decomposition commences, a lot of carbon dioxide gas and water vapor is produced and because of the heat in the pile, the gases are driven into the atmosphere.  The pile begins to collapse upon itself as the center of the pile decomposes. This results in a substantial drop in the amount of oxygen that is needed to oxidize material.  The microbes can not survive when the oxygen level drops too low but other microbes that thrive in low oxygen environments will begin to flourish.

The anaerobic (low oxygen loving) microbes take over and produce noxious gases including ammonia, nitrous oxide, methane, and hydrogen sulfide and many other noxious materials.  Because of the heat, these gases are also driven into the atmosphere.  The loss of nitrogen in the form of ammonia means in the end the compost nitrogen content is reduced.  This is the process of putrefaction and it accounts for the offensive pile odors frequently observed when material is allowed to rot.  That’s not good.

Anyone who ever tried to manage a compost pile will tell you it is a little tricky.  It is almost impossible to maintain the perfect conditions to get a consistent product.  You’ve got to make a pile big enough to get the temperature up to 110 – 150 F, assuming you have a proper mix of microbes.  You’ve got to turn it and mix it adequately to keep the oxygen levels up to support the oxidation and you’ve got to add enough water to keep the humidity between 50 and 60%.  If you turn it too soon, it will cool too fast.  You have to add more water as it dries out to keep the organisms working (wasting water).

We’re not done yet.  The microbes are pretty fussy……some need organic matter high in carbon content whilst others need organic matter rich in nitrogen.  You’ve got to support these requirements or the pile won’t decompose in the manner you’d like.  It turns out you’ve got to have a proper balance of carbon to nitrogen to make the pile work (C: N ratio about 30:1).  People usually define carbon as “brown stuff” and nitrogen as “green stuff”……so you mix brown and green materials to try to get the ratio correct.

I think you’ve got the picture and it is kind of ugly.  It’s very hard to control this process and virtually impossible to keep it going smoothly all along the way.  You just can’t mix the pile and keep the temperature, humidity, C: N ratios, and oxygen levels etc. all where they need to be to get a consistent product.  When it is done industrially, a lot of energy consuming devices are used to make it better.  Temperature sensors, blowers, heaters, sprayers, oxygenators, earth movers, etc. are employed.  A lot of labor and energy is consumed to produce a product.  It can take easily 6 months from the beginning to the end of the process to have a stable and cured pile of compost.

In the end the humus produced, because of the heat, etc. has been sterilized.  The natural microbes that normally inhabit the soil are no longer present.  The natural microbes in the soil are intimately involved in assisting plants fix nitrogen and provide many nutrients that plants can readily assimilate.  A lot of nitrogen was lost in the decomposition (taken out of the product as ammonia and nitrogen oxide gases and dispersed into the atmosphere).  The oxidation of the organic matter results in tons of carbon dioxide and water vapor going into the atmosphere.  Have you ever witnessed a steaming pile in the cool morning air?

Is it natural?  People frequently like to say composting is natural “natures way of breaking down the organic matter”.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  When did you ever see mounds of material piled up and rotting in nature?  Men recognized that you could accelerate the oxidation and breakdown by gathering and piling material in masses that are properly aerated and humidified.

In nature material is far more slowly broken down.  When the leaves and debris do pile up and become matted down by rain and water, the oxygen is excluded and anaerobic processes take over.  Most of the decomposition is occurring at ambient temperatures. Because no one is turning material to get the oxygen levels back to surface conditions, the interior processes resulting in decomposition are anaerobic (at very low oxygen levels).  Have you every witnessed leaves as they naturally rot?  They form a soggy mass on the ground in the fall and by winter’s end have completely disappeared.

The process of composting is not nature’s way but man’s way of rotting material.  It is polluting the planet.  We are by composting releasing water vapor, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and numerous other gases into the atmosphere.  We are releasing a lot of heat that would not have been produced naturally.  If we encourage people to compost, promote composting as an environmentally sound solution, and want to believe it is a sustainable practice that will be good for the planet, we are only fooling ourselves.

Like the child who saw the emperor’s suit for what it was, those who want real sustainability will acknowledge there has to be a better way.  And there is.  We’ll talk more about green house gases, microbes, and anaerobic fermentation in the future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_City

Things aren’t always as they appear………or as we are told.  Like the scarecrow, the tin man, and the cowardly lion, we need good ideas, our heart, and courage to do what is right.  We are told that the planet is heating up, that frightening things are happening (global warming) and like Dorothy, Toto and her companions we are not too happy to hear about these problems.

The mighty Wizard of Oz (scientists) advise us to get the broom.  We’ve got to face the wicked witch of the east and we’ve got to get rid of her creepy flying monkeys (green house gases).  We are supposed to find the answers and get back to the mighty Wizard hoping then he will show us how we get back to Kansas.

Dorothy and her dog Toto left the farm to find “a better place somewhere over the rainbow” only to in the end realize that the answers had always been in their own back yard.

Like Dorothy and her companions, others are taking the yellow brick road to the Emerald City seeking answers hoping the mighty Wizard of Oz will give them good advice.

Leaders around the country look to Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco for those answers.  They want to know what to do with the solid waste, kitchen scraps, and organic solids that we all agree should no longer be placed in the landfills.

http://bokashicycle.blogspot.com/2008/12/naked-truthabout-compost.html

Green House Gases

What are the greenhouse gases anyway?  We’ve heard a lot about them but perhaps you too have wondered a lot about them and why some gases are more damaging than others.

It’s really pretty simple and you don’t need an advanced degree or a lot of fancy calculations to get your arms around the problem.  Simply put, anything in the atmosphere (over and above the surface of the earth) can absorb the sun’s energy, become heated, and then irradiate or send that energy back to the surface.

If we had no atmosphere a great deal of energy from the sun striking the planet would be deflected and sent back off into space.  The surface of the earth would be significantly cooler.   It  is warmer here because the gases trap heat. Most of the things in the air are gases…….like water vapor, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide.  Some of these gases escape the planet and take the heat they have absorbed with them and that has an effect of actually cooling down the planet.  Fortunately for us, we are not loosing a lot of gas.

Gases formed at the surface going back into the atmosphere will heat up and blanket the earth sending heat back to the surface, and this over time results in a kind of steady state temperature for the planet.  Some gases are more efficient at capturing the sun’s energy.  When they form and escape into the atmosphere; they have a greater effect on heating. Other gases that are less efficient at capturing solar energy do little to heat the planet.

So you can already appreciate that we’ve got to think about the amount of gas being put into the atmosphere and how efficient it is at trapping the sun’s heat to get a handle on how bad the problem might get if we don’t change our habits.  A small amount of a very efficient heat trapping gas could be far more devastating for the planet then large amounts of a relatively weak heat trapping gas.

Here’s the good news………..we need our atmosphere and these gases to get the temperature high enough to support life as we know it.  The oxygen, water vapor, carbon dioxide and other gases all contribute to heating up the surface because they catch the heat from the sun on the way to the surface or as it is deflected off the surface distributing and blanketing the earth with a kind of insulation that keeps the temperature about 33 degrees Celsius warmer then it would be without these gases.

http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/greenhouse.htm

Some gases, like methane when released into the atmosphere over time react to form other gases (they are oxidized and broken down) and as you can imagine the chemistry can get complicated.  But the point is that even though the life time of the gas in the atmosphere may vary and change with time, the heat absorbing and re-distributing heat properties of the gases are all contributing to a net gain in planetary temperature.  If we were truly in a steady state where gases going into the atmosphere and leaving the atmosphere were fixed and equal, there would be no further net heating of the planet.  But that is not a fact.

As it turns out the global warming potential of methane is about 21 times greater then the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.  This is just another way of saying that a molecule of methane (and all of its subsequent known oxidized products) will in time be 21 times more effective then carbon dioxide at trapping heat.

Nitrous oxide, a gas produced by earthworms, also found in poorly managed compost piles, is 310 times more potent then carbon dioxide.

www.compostingcouncil.org/download.php?r=15&f=34b7cbc44f552a8d44606effb3792e07.pdf -

Certain trace gases like fluorocarbons used industrially are more then 1000 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat and they are no longer being used because they so heavily pollute the atmosphere.

We all know now that methane and carbon dioxide are great contributors to planetary heating and it really doesn’t matter rather you think it is man-made or natural causes we don’t fully appreciate that explain the rise in carbon dioxide levels that have been widely observed.  More polluting gases are only going to make things worse.

When carbonized products are oxidized, carbon dioxide is produced.  So fuel used in transporting or processing materials, either goods or waste material will pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.  Of course we’d like people to consume less and produce less waste so we don’t have to transport so much waste to the landfill.  And we will ask them to take the organic waste out of the garbage so it can be processed more efficiently.  We don’t want that methane and carbon dioxide coming out of the landfill and we need more space to bury the non-organic waste.

http://bokashicycle.blogspot.com/2008/12/seattle-to-require-table-scrap_21.html

We’ve already made the point that composting is not the answer and is indeed contributing significantly to the global warming problem.  We can anticipate that the problem will get much worse if more people adopt that policy.  Academics who have taken a closer look at how people compost at home have warned us more then 2 years ago that these practices contribute greatly to global warming.

http://www.letsrecycle.com/materials/composting/news.jsp?story=6054

Professor Jan Gronow of London’s Imperial College has pointed out that “Emissions from home composting and poorly-run composting operations may contribute significant amounts of methane because75% of people’s home composting bins are anaerobic because they do not aerate them.”  The concern was backed up by the head of the waste and energy research group at the University of Brighton, Dr Marie Harder, who asked: “Has anybody stopped to ask whether home composting is good for the environment?”

Over 34% of British households participate in home composting schemes according to the government, which has just completed an initiative handing out one million composting bins via the Waste and Resources Action Program.

Defra’s (the British Government’s equivalent of our USDA’s) long-term waste strategy is currently being reviewed, with a new strategy expected by the end of the year. But Prof Gronow, who was formerly the Environment Agency’s head of waste and remediation science, believes the government was “jumping on the climate change bandwagon” to reach European landfill targets rather than thinking about the real environmental impacts of different recycling and composting processes.

A little house keeping…………..

So some of you who think composting is good may want to site a number of reports where experts have made the claim that in well managed compost operations the contributions to greenhouse gases are reduced.  For example Californians Against Waste assert that composting is a greenhouse gas mitigation measure.

http://www.cawrecycles.org/issues/ghg/compost

And there are primers for Compost Producers that attempt to rigorously prove that composting is beneficial and results in a reduction in GHG emissions.

http://www.compostingcouncil.org/download.php?r=15&f=34b7cbc44f552a8d44606effb3792e07.pdf

Here it is very important to look at the assumptions that are made.  We’ve got to question those assumptions to determine if they are truly valid and use a little common sense.

Although they acknowledge an inventory of GHG must be done to determine if policies are truly going to make a difference, the assumptions regarding what is happening when organic discards are processed are flawed.

Organic discards that are high in nitrogen and carbon content (food scraps, grass clippings, etc.) placed in the landfills decompose to produce methane and nitrous oxides.  They pollute badly………..so we want them out of the landfills.  We all agree.

It is argued that the value of compost mitigation (to reduce global heating) can be determined by answers to these questions.

• What would have happened to the feedstock (scraps, clippings, etc.) had they not been composted?
• How is the compost operation run?
• What happens to the compost?

The negative impacts are said to be from emissions from diesel powered processing equipment used to handle and process feedstock that is being composted.

Good accounting practices mean you have to account for the cash coming in and going out.  The rate of carbon dioxide produced does not necessarily equal the rate of carbon dioxide taken back out of the atmosphere by plants.  That assumption was made in the mitigation analysis.

The carbon dioxide naturally produced by decaying plants is called biogenic carbon dioxide.  The net balance will be close to zero if there is no polluting program in place.  One assumption about composting that can lead to a great miscalculation is the assumption that the rate of carbon dioxide produced during compost operations equals the rate of removal from the atmosphere by plants that are alive and growing.

As more and more agricultural products are produced to feed the growing world population, the mass of organic waste has escalated.  It is simply unreasonable to assume that the rate of aerated waste material allowed to decompose (by composting) will produce no more carbon dioxide then can be taken up by plants.

Although it might well be reasoned that because methane and nitrous oxide are far more heat producing than carbon dioxide alone, and neither of these gases are produced in well run compost operations, it does not prove that composting is the best policy.  There are alternative practices that produce no polluting gases.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/

It has also been argued that composting puts more carbon into the soil (a form of sequestration).  If you can put the carbon into the soil so less and less is available to oxidize and produce carbon dioxide, then over time the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has to drop……….right?  This again is not necessarily true.  It depends on the relative rates for producing carbon dioxide and sequestrating the carbon.  If you are producing more and more carbon waste (more food scraps) and composting them, yes it is true more and more carbon is going into the soil, but you are also putting more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Wormeries?

Some of you are certainly familiar with wormeries and one might be tempted to believe these are going to help us out of this problem.  Although the amount of worm composting is very small and the amount of landfill is large, the worms may not be as environmentally friendly as gardeners who use them have hoped for.

A lot of people love worms and think they do no harm.  However, it is now clear that large commercial worm composting plants may be comparable to the global warming potential of landfill sites of the same scale.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3299669/Wormeries-%27may-add-to-greenhouse-gases%27.html

Scientists in Germany have demonstrated that one third of the nitrous oxide emissions coming from the soil are associated with worms.  Although worms are very efficient at breaking down kitchen scraps and other organic materials, they emit nitrous oxide in the process of digesting these materials which as noted is 300 times as effective as carbon dioxide in trapping heat.

Bio-Char?

What about that idea of trapping carbon in the soil?  Thousands of years ago the natives along the Amazon basin discovered a method of farming that until recently was not fully appreciated as a method of reducing the greenhouse gas effects.  They were able to transform some of the most infertile soils into the most productive of soils that remains today even 500 years after they are gone rich in organic matter and nutrients.

The Terra preta, as it is known, was produced by a slash-and-char policy.  The indigenous people like others in many parts of the world did a slash and burn to clear and prepare the land for crops, but instead of letting the fire burn openly and rapidly, they covered the lit fires with soil and straw to let it smolder.  They reduced the amount of oxygen available for combustion.

http://www.garyjones.org/mt/archives/000273.html

The smoldering process puts about 50% of the carbon mass back into the soil where it is then available for plants and microbes in the soil.  It turns out that microbes and plants symbiotically thrive off of the carbonaceous resins that are produced.  The microbes release enzymes that are involved in freeing trapped minerals, ions and nutrients fixed in the charred mass that are then delivered to the plant root hairs.  The plants secrete nutrients in return that are used by the microbes.

Because the oxygen levels were reduced in the process of decomposing the organic matter (in this case by slash-and-char), less carbon was released into the air as carbon dioxide.  Carbon was put into the ground (sequestrated) and made unavailable for release into the atmosphere.

The Japanese government approved the use of charcoal as a land management practice in 1990 and we are certain much more work in this area is in process.

The more we examine the facts the more we realize that the processing of the carbon waste and the biomass that is less polluting occurs when oxygen levels are reduced.  Although it is true that anaerobic decomposition in the landfill is polluting, this is because of the type of organisms that are allowed to grow and interact that trigger the release of methane and other polluting gases.  An anaerobic fermentation process with the right kinds of microbes gets around this problem and most importantly produces no polluting gases.  It is also far more efficient and faster then composting.

In the classic 1939 American musical-fantasy film, The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy and her companions returned to Emerald City, her dog, Toto inadvertently exposes the great and powerful wizard as a fraud.   They find an ordinary man hiding behind a curtain operating a giant console which contains a group of buttons and levers and are of course outraged at his deception.  But the wizard solves their problems through common sense and a little double talk, rather than magic. He explains that they already had what they had been searching for all along and only needed things such as medals and diplomas to confirm that they were qualified to find the solutions to their problems.

They found in the Emerald city the answer they were hoping to get……….and it was surprising to discover it was right at home………..in the back yard.  We’ll talk more about microbes and anaerobic fermentation in the next blog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RubyMhawk.jpg

Dragon Flies in my Garden?

We had a cold and long wet winter in the Pacific Northwest and summer was a long time coming.  It seemed as if everyone with a garden noted plants were slow to grow, failing to thrive, and stunted due to the cold wet early summer.

I’ve been fermenting all kinds of waste material and putting it back to the soil recovering nutrients that would have otherwise ended up in a dumpster or landfill.  It’s been so easy and I no longer ever think of putting anything organic into the garbage can.   I have literally turned my garbage can off.  No more trips with smelly garbage to mess with.

I don’t add any fertilizers to my soil and I avoid pesticides in general.  My plants are doing well……had a bumper crop of peas this year and corn looks good too.  What I really like about the garden is the rich texture and colors so evident this time of year.

I’ve noticed another critter coming each year and it is spending a lot of time in my garden.  Dragon flies seem to love flitting about adding even more color and interest and I believe they are far more numerous now than in years past.

Although I’ve never seen anyone talk about the dragon fly as a sign of good health, I believe they likely signal all is well.  Their larvae feed on a lot of bugs and larvae in ponds and the adults are great hunters feeding on midges and flies.  I like to think they are protecting my plants….soldiers attacking predators that might have otherwise gone after my vibrant plants.

In Japan the dragon fly is apparently admired and a symbol of courage, strength and happiness.  So it seems kind of fitting that the dragon flies are doing well in my Bokashi fed garden.  Bokashi for those who don’t already know is the Japanese word which in translation means fermented organic material.

One of the points we’ve made frequently is that you can Bokashi ferment literally anything organic.

Bokashi – Dig it! 10 Reasons to get started

Previously we spoke about food waste and pet poop fermenting.  You can also ferment yard waste including grass clippings and weeds.

Bokashi Fermenting Food Waste:

It is so easy to ferment your food scraps.  And it’s a good feeling to know that in the process you save money on your garbage bill, get rich soil in return, and feed your plants natural nutrients.  No more smelly garbage, fruit flies, rats or vermin to contend with.  But you’ve got to put the fermented material back in the ground.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/

Bokashi fermenting involves mixing the food scraps with a microbial culture mix in a specialized fermenter that excludes oxygen.  The microbes are active when the oxygen levels are brought to very low levels where other microbes perish.  The microbes release enzymes (chemicals) that breakdown food waste to a form that is then easily metabolized by soil microbes.  It is a two step process.

Fermenting is a pickling process. The food scraps are first pickled in a specialized fermenter, and then the fermented product is put it in the ground.  It is 10 times faster than composting and much easier.  Greenhouse gases are eliminated.  You end up with virtually 100% of the waste material going back to the soil where it is broken down even further.

There are many advantages to this method of disposing of food scraps.  Nutrients are put right back into the soil and the population of soil microbes expands in numbers and diversity.  Plants do very well in this kind of soil and you no longer need to use fertilizers and pesticides to get vibrant healthy plants.

You don’t have to take the garbage out in the cold and rainy weather and won’t have to empty your fermenter for weeks with a proper fermenting device……………but eventually, depending on how much waste you generate you are going to make that trip to the garden (or planter box) to bury the fermented product to feed your hungry soil microbes.

If the weather is cold, and the ground is frozen, most people just dump the batch of fermented food scraps into a large container outside with a lid.  It is perfectly okay to let it freeze too.  You can fill a container or two all winter if you like and await the spring thaw.

When the ground is once again soft, work the fermented product into the soil and you will observe the soil microbes rapidly metabolize all of the wasted material in short order.  All of the nutrients go right to the soil.  Your vegetable garden will be great……..and nothing was lost in waiting out the winter.  If you have properly fermented the food waste you will have no smelly garbage in the outside container.  Animals will not bother it.

Bokashi fermenting dog and cat poop?

Pet waste is generally alkaline and carries with it a number of potential parasites and pathogens that can get into the water supply.  It is an important point; how to safely dispose of pet waste without contaminating the ground water.

We have constructed a special fermenter with an accelerant to handle pet waste (Bokashi PetCycle Waste Disposal System) and use the same microbial culture mix in the fermenters to eliminate odors and convert waste into nutrients for the soil.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/petcycle.html

If you are collecting the waste in plastic bags and putting it in the garbage cans, it will end up in a landfill where it will with the plastic cause a lot of problems.  Methane gas will be produced and the potential for ground water contamination persists.  Those plastic bags will stay around for thousands of years.

If you put it in the PetCycle™ disposal system to ferment, the smell will be eliminated and the waste material will be converted to a high nitrogen rich “pickled” waste that can then be put safely into the soil where you want to grow ornamental plants.  Even though it looks awful…like gravy………it is not smelly and is taken up by the soil microbes quickly leaving rich nutrient soil for your plants.  You mix it in the soil in a hole in the same way you process bokashi fermented food scraps after the fermenting is complete.

Build your own Yard Waste Fermenter:

Grass clippings and yard waste take up a lot of room and do not rapidly compost.  If you don’t mix enough carbon material with the cut grass it will soon turn dark and foul in your compost pile.  The slimy black matted grass clippings are then hard to deal with because they don’t mix well in the soil or do it any good.

With an anaerobic conversion kit and Bokashi culture mix you can make your own fermenter and then easily deal with those grass clippings.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/commercial/index6.html

As with the food waste fermenting you will need to layer the clippings into the fermenter.  Yard waste requires an accelerant in addition to the culture mix to get it started in fermenting because yard waste chemistry, unlike food waste chemistry, won’t start the fermenting process without assistance.

Begin by wetting waste down as it goes into the fermenter.  With each layer of waste (grass clippings or weeds) you add powder culture mix and then spritz the layer with a dilute solution of accelerant (http://www.bokashicycle.com/commercial/index5.html).

If you have an air tight fermenter, you will find all of the yard waste is broken down in approximately 7 – 10 days and ready to be mixed with soil.

You will then mix it well with soil covering it with about 3 inches of soil to finish off the cycle…back to soil.  Fermented grass has a fresh sweat vinegar smell and quickly disappears after mixing with the soil.

If you want to add twigs and small branches to the fermenter, shred them first and wet them completely before mixing with the other yard waste.  In the images below you can see how weeds and waste were packed into the fermenter with a sprinkle of culture mix.  The anaerobic toter was then sealed for 7 days.

The contents of the container collapsed and darkened considerably after 7 days and on the surface white filamentous fungi were evident( see fermented yard waste image below).  This is an easy way to get away from the flies and smelly compost pile and it is a lot less work.

If you use a lot of fertilizers or pesticides or other chemicals on your lawn, then it would be wise not to bury the fermented yard waste where you plan to raise vegetables or food crops.

You can use Bokashi culture mix to convert virtually any kind of waste material that is of plant or animal origin into something great for your garden.  It is rapid, easy and efficient.  Greenhouse gases are eliminated in this process.  Vermin and insects and smelly piles are gone. No more tedious composting.   Plants love it.  And if you are near ponds or lakes, I’m certain you will find dragon flies visiting your garden too.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/petcycle.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dark_Hollow_Falls.jpg

In the process the “waste” material is turned into something valuable.  Instead of letting your waste end up in the landfill, you can with the microbes put it back to the soil where it will do some good.

Why ferment dog or cat poop?  It’s all about cleaning up the environment.  We want to keep our water clean and free of pathogens.  We want to reduce the amount of waste going to landfills.  And we know waste put in the landfill generates a lot of methane and other gases that ultimately contribute to the heating up of the planet.

In our last blog we gave 10 good reasons to get involved.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/blog/?p=167

We advocated fermenting organic waste instead of composting or discarding waste in a dump, because it is faster, easier, and simpler to do right at home.  And if you love plants and gardens, you get the benefit of feeding those plants nutrients from enriched healthy soil and in doing this reduce your dependence on fertilizers and pesticides.

Chemical Analysis:

We are not going to get overly technical here.  But I think it is interesting to see what is going on in the process of organic waste being broken down to smaller and smaller molecules that can then be put back to the soil and recycled right at home.

When the conditions are right, the microbes grown on the waste material break it down.  They do this by releasing enzymes that disrupt membranes releasing nutrients.  You can think of it like peeling a banana or peeling a tasty orange.  The microbes are feeding on the cellular nutrients…..getting lots of sugars and other needed materials so they can survive.  In the process they rapidly reproduce and the cycle continues with ever increasing numbers until the food source (waste material) is consumed.

Some microbes are picky.  They can only metabolize (breakdown and consume) certain types of food material and when they are finished, others move in and take over where the first consumers feast has ended.

This goes on for awhile and ends when all of the “pickled” waste material in the soil is consumed.  The wasted material that is put into the soil after bokashi fermenting may look little changed to the human eye, but on a microscopic level, it is very different from the waste put into the fermenter initially.  It takes 7 – 10 days for the soil microbes to finish up their part of the job….breaking everything down to valued nutrients for the plants.

And as we have mentioned time and again, it is this expansion of microbes in the soil in numbers and diversity and nutrients ending up in the soil that gives the garden plants a rich vibrant push forward.  Restoring soil is important.  Natural occurring microbes are restored in this process.

When the enzymes break cells down and release the inner nutrients, liquids are generated.  This accounts for a lot of the liquid that forms the “bokashi tea” we get from our food waste processing.  When you dilute that liquid 1:100 and put it in the garden or on the house plants, you see good things happen.  The plants become more lush and productive.  You can even spray it on the grass.  It will be better than those other fertilizers that end up in rivers and streams polluting our water and killing fish.

Here is a highly magnified image of your typical bokashi tea taken through the microscope.  All of those squiggly dots and dashes…..are microbes healthy and active.

1 drop of Bokashi Tea – magnification 1000x

Chemists like to look at and identify what kinds of molecules are being generated when things breakdown.  There are lots of ways to do this, but one of the very easy things to do is to take a diluted sample and run it through a specialized instrument that does a kind of CSI (fingerprint) analysis.  When you look at the tracing from this instrument you get a list of materials formed.  They show up as spikes when they cross a detector which records each and every substance in the sample.

In the figure below you can see the “print” for dog poop and the “print” for food waste taken from samples that were allowed to ferment (decompose with microbes).

HPLC tracings and analysis by Dr. Terry Green courtesy Dr. Radu Popa PSU Portland, OR April 2010

It is interesting how similar the prints are one to the other.  The dog poop “print” is remarkably similar to the pattern for food waste.  In fact both produce virtually the same kinds of chemicals.  We’ve identified several…..acetic acid, proprionic acid, butyric acid and caproic acid.

Note that the dog poop print is less complicated than the food waste print (fewer end products appear in the trace).  That makes sense since your dog already digested and in the gut absorbed many nutrients and products formed as food was being degraded. What was left over (in the poop) is the less complex non absorbed material that will be further degraded in fermenting.  There are unfortunately potentially harmful parasites and pathogens in the gut that end up in the poop which is why we face always the potential real threat to contaminating ground water and landfill sites.

The acids produced in the fermentation are very interesting.  As many of you know, acetic acid diluted in water is vinegar.  The other volatile fatty acids end up in the mix, like acetic acid because the microbes can’t efficiently get rid of them.  You can think of them as annoying leftovers at the end of the feast.  The microbes in a sealed anaerobic fermenter generate these acids that are a signal that the party is over… no more good stuff to eat.

These acids however do some interesting things that turn out to be most beneficial.  When you pour the fermented waste material (from food waste or pet waste) into the soil and let the soil microbes pick through the left over product, lots of things happen.

Air is now introduced and a whole new set of microbes get a chance to work on the left over material.  Those fatty acids disappear like candy as they are rich fuel aerobic microbes can readily metabolize.

What about Pathogenic Organisms?

Some of you may be worried about pathogenic microbes, especially when we talk about fermenting dog or cat poop.  As we noted above in our chemical analysis, a number of acids are formed including butyric acid.  These fatty acids are powerful inhibitors that help kill those pathogenic microbes.

It turns out that butyric acid, proprionic acid, and other small chain fatty acids are toxic to coliforms including E. Coli and Salmonella (known pathogens that do contaminate ground water). The pathogens die off in a fermenting system while other microbes are breaking down the poop.  If the system is sealed and given time to complete its digestion which takes about 7 days, the chances of getting ground water contamination are very much reduced.

When poop is allowed to sit on the surface or even when buried, it takes a long time to completely breakdown.  It attracts flies, is foul smelling and an unwelcome addition to the grass or garden.  When it rains or with watering the pathogens in the poop are carried into lakes and streams and end up in water we need to keep free of contamination.

A properly functioning fermenting system is very efficient because it converts the poop or food waste to something of value and gets rid of the heavy load of pathogens that would have otherwise been sent to the landfill or left in the soil to contaminate ground water.  Fermenting returns nutrients to the soil.  It keeps water from getting contaminated.

3M makes a simple Petri film kit that can be used to rapidly test for coliforms including E. coli.  In the last two pictures you can see what happens to the E. coli /coliforms in the fermenting system compared to a non-fermenting system.  They don’t make it through the system.  In this experiment 10 pounds of dog poop was mixed with 2.5 gallons of water.  A sample of this slurry was set aside and tested on Day 1 and Day 7.  A second sample identical to the first except the culture mix powder was added was also tested on Day 1 and Day 7.  On Day 1 as would be expected the colonies of microbes where very high and easily detected in both samples.

On Day 7, the sample that had been fermented (right hand image) showed no evidence of surviving pathogens but the sample that was not fermented (left hand image) had abundant colonies of microbes showing.

We have tested fermented food waste systems on numerous occasions and find no evidence of pathogenic microbes in our cultures on Petri film.

In summary, fermenting organic waste appears remarkably easy and beneficial with a much lower probability of soil and ground water contamination relative to other treatment methods (composting or landfill operations) that have been employed.  Eliminating noxious odors, flies and rodent problems and getting nutrients cycled rapidly back to soil for your plants is an additional plus.

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Claude_Monet_015.jpg

Claude Monet 015.jpg (London Fog Parliament building)

If you love to grow vegetables or build ornamental gardens that are rich and vibrant free of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, than bokashi fermenting is exactly what you want to do.  The microbes will rapidly convert organic waste material into nutrients that will feed your plants.  Pet waste can be rapidly transformed into nutrients for your ornamental garden instead of ending up in the landfill or polluting ground water.

Even if you are not interested in gardening, you will see many reasons to change from throwing out the trash to fermenting the trash.  It will save you money and time and will as you will see below clean up the air, water, and soil.

If you live in a crowded city and take your dog or pet to a park then you ought to be fermenting the pet waste.  Where do you think the plastic bags of pet waste end up?  You can safely dispose of cat or dog feces with a fermenter and stop the ground water pollution related to water run-off.

Most people don’t realize there is a third alternative to disposing of waste material that is far safer than using landfills or composting.  It is faster, cleaner and very scalable.  It is far less costly and something you can do right at home.

Everyone knows we can’t waste land using landfills indefinitely.  Composting is not really viable as an alternative because it costs too much, is time consuming, is messy attracting vermin, flies and fouling the air with rotting garbage smells, and virtually half of the material composted is lost to the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas.  Composting is the process of oxidizing organic matter and it doesn’t matter how you go about it; it is a non-sustainable polluting process.  http://www.bokashicycle.com/landfill.html

I’m going to give you 10 reasons to make the switch from composting to fermenting.  We are talking about a special type of fermenting called Bokashi Fermenting (acidic anaerobic fermenting). www.bokashicycle.com

Reasons to Adopt the Microbes – Bokashi Ferment Organic Matter

The Bokashi fermenting is a simple solution. Here, specialized microbes are allowed to work on the biomass where there is no oxygen (the anaerobic process). The microbes work best when they are undisturbed and do their job very quickly fermenting (pickling) the biomass. The microbes work together attacking the mass with enzymes (chemicals microbes use to break structures down). No gases are liberated. Carbon is not oxidized (carbon dioxide does not form and enter the atmosphere because there is no oxygen present during the process), no putrefaction (foul odors) is produced, and most importantly the nitrogen remains in a form that plants can readily use.

The process occurs at low temperatures, never heating up as occurs during composting, and is complete in less than 1/10 the time it takes to compost a biomass. When the fermented product is put into the ground, the soil microbes take over and quickly do the final conversion to enriched soil. None of the water in the biomass is lost. Soil microbes are replenished. Soil is properly amended and plants grow well without the heavy dependence on fertilizers and pesticides. No mixing or turning is required and the process, unlike composting, does not contribute to global warming.

1.    Cleaning up the air:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nelson%27s_Column_during_the_Great_Smog_of_1952.jpg

Nelson’s Column during the Great Smog of 1952.jpg

Most of us are accustomed to noxious odors and fouled air if we live anywhere near urban centers.  Monet in 1904 captured the heavy and polluted London scene in his 1904 painting of Parliament that may be beautiful but was also deadly.  In the 1950’s with coal soot contributions to atmospheric pollution degraded, pollution and smog were evident in the city.  Man is the generator of most of the planetary pollutants.  Although much of the polluting is blamed on petro fuels, cars, and trucks, the volume of rotting garbage, agricultural composting, and carbon dioxide generators contribute very substantially to polluting the air.  Maybe it will take a little time to solve the transportation problem, but we can immediately put an end to open air oxidation.

Allowing waste to end up in the landfill or composting it generates a lot of carbon dioxide, methane, sulfurous and nitrogenous gases that all contribute to global warming and air pollution.  When you bokashi ferment in an anaerobic (oxygen excluding) chamber it puts an immediate end to this polluting process.  You can do it now……….it’s easy and fast.  And it is a lot less work.  Do it at home.

It will take a little time for industry to realize that there is a better way to treat waste material.  So much time and energy was put into permitting, building, and supporting composting sites that it is hard for many to consider the alternative.  Once they come to realize that bokashi fermenting is 10 times faster, requires but a fraction of the land because you don’t need to windrow, and gets rid of the huge investment in leasing or buying heavy machinery needed to compost, the transformation will occur.  Think of all of the fuel savings that will occur with this transformation.

2.    Cleaning up and conserving water:

Most people know that water is a scarce and limited resource.  Clean water is essential.  We should do everything possible to conserve our water wisely.  When you allow water to vaporize and escape into the atmosphere the land from which it escaped is desiccated.  If you are farming and composting, a lot of the water you are using escapes to the atmosphere and you need to add water to the compost to keep it working.  That water is better used on your crops.

Municipalities with composting permitted sites are wasting water because it has to be added to the compost to keep the process working.  These requirements make it costly to compost and are totally avoidable.  The clean water you bought is being wasted and diverted to a process that does not conserve water.  When you bokashi ferment industrially or at home, all of the water contained in the organic matter (food scraps or pet waste) is retained in the sealed fermenter.

With bokashi fermenting the water is being retained and in the metabolic degrading of waste material more water is being produced.  It is all retained and secure.  The bokashi tea produced is rich in nutrients and useful microbes and spreading it in the garden is a better use than allowing water to escape to the atmosphere.  And with fermenting you deliver virtually 100% of the nutrients back to the land with the water instead of taking fresh water out of the reservoirs.  This is just a better way of managing one of our very precious resources and it can be done now.

The rich fermented product formed when you breakdown the organic waste is mixed with the soil in the second stage in bokashi fermenting.  This results in its rapid transformation to nutrient rich soil for your plants with an expanded number and diversity of soil microbes.  The nutrients and microbes support the plants and reduce dependence on pesticides and fertilizers which most people know poison soils over time.

We love our pets.  Dogs and cats produce a lot of feces and we don’t have a simple solution to keep it out of the ground water.  When waste is allowed to sit on the surface, the parasites and pathogenic microbes (E. coli, Toxoplasmosis, etc.) end up in the water table where they have to be removed before we can safely consume the water.  Those parasites and microbes can affect wild animals and fish too.  We know our streams, lakes and rivers are polluted with an ever increasing number of microbes.  It’s water run-off and the growing number of pets all contributing to this problem.

Dog parks and plastic bags?  That’s not the solution.  When you put the feces in a plastic bag and into the trash or barrel at the dog park it just ends up in a landfill.  Now you have a buried pile of methane producing feces and plastic. What do you do at home?  If you bury it, it will in time be properly eliminated but water will still run through the mess polluting the water table.  If you flush it, it puts more stress on municipalities to treat the added load of sewage.  Toxoplasmosis, common in cat feces is difficult and costly to get out of the water supply.

Ferment that pet waste.  It is easy and fast and gets rid of the smell.  Most importantly you are diverting that pet waste out of the landfill and away from the water supply and putting it to good use in your ornamental garden.  Even if you don’t have a garden and just bury the fermented waste in the soil, you’ve done a lot to keep the water supply safe and clean.  http://www.bokashicycle.com/petcycle.html

3.    Reduce your dependence on plastic bags:

Most people use plastic bags to line the garbage can and to help eliminate the messy garbage and smells.  When you bokashi ferment you don’t use plastic bags.  They won’t break down and should not be used.  Why buy plastic bags that will cost you more to handle messy garbage when it will end up in a landfill or in the ocean or water system?

What about biodegradable plastic bags?  You really don’t want to use them at all.  They are of two types but neither is truly as degradable as you might have thought.  The corn-starch derived bags are designed to breakdown with high temperatures in the presence of moisture.

They are intended for commercial composting sites where material is windrowed.  If they end up in a landfill it will take many thousands of years to decompose.  If they blow around on the surface, they will contribute to the unsightly mess we see everywhere and they won’t break down rapidly even when wet.  They require high temperatures to “breakdown”.

Do the bags really breakdown?  No.  What really happens is that with the high temperature and heat the cross links break apart between long linear plastic polymers. These are the corn-starch links and may make up 5% of the plastic composition.  This leads to a deposition of long strands of plastic polymers (like microscopic threads) that remain in the end product for thousands of years.

You can see what will come of this.  As more and more of the corn-starch derived plastics are put through the system, more and more polymeric plastic ends up in the soil and water.  Think of the long term effect on soil microbes and animals.  Do you know how this is going to impact life on the planet?  Nobody knows.

The other so called water soluble plastic bags are similar but they have a polyvinyl alcohol composition instead of corn-starch cross link.  This link hydrolyzes and breaks down when agitated in water releasing the long strand plastic inert polymers directly in the water.  Do you think it is a good idea to use “flushable” plastics?

Bokashi fermenting completely eliminates the need to use plastic polymers in handling waste material.  It conserves water and prevents ground water contamination.

4.    Improve soil and restore microbial numbers and diversity:

We’ve spoken previously about the need to restore microbial diversity to our soil.  Most soils have been polluted by industrial contamination, excess use of fertilizers, pesticides or poor management.

When you stop adding chemicals to the soil and allow nutrients derived from fermented organic material to mix in with the soil and naturally resident microbes, the result is an expanded population of soil microbes.  This leads to an expansion in numbers and diversity of microbes and depending on the local situation (composition of soil, light, moisture, etc.) the situation shifts favorably to re-establish a niche of checks and balances with microbes and plants co-existing optimally.  It is this synergy we hope to establish that results in a truly sustainable process of recycling.

It is interesting to observe that there is an initial fermenting (pickling) step that is required before the product can be put to the soil in order to rapidly and effectively recycle nutrients.  We suspect this is related to normal defenses plants and animals have that prevent their being digested by naturally occurring microbes.

It appears that the acidic fermenting microbes are capable of removing the natural defense (waxy coatings, cellulose polymers, etc.) protecting material from being digested (metabolized) at anytime.  Raw waste material simply mixed with soil will not readily breakdown, will attract rodents and flies, and will smell.  Bokashi fermented (acidic anaerobic fermented) waste will rapidly convert to nutrient rich soil.

Bokashi Expert’s Guide Part 2 of 3 – Fermenting Food Waste, Apartment and Condo Use, Commercial Applications, and more.

5.    Immediately reduce your greenhouse gas contribution:

With bokashi fermenting in a closed container under acidic anaerobic conditions the greenhouse gas emissions are virtually eliminated compared to composting.  This is because the process of fermenting occurs under acidic conditions in the absence of oxygen.  Methane gas cannot form under these conditions because the organisms that produce methane gas do not survive or produce gas unless the pH is neutral.  This is a well known fact and in numerous measurements no methane is ever detected.

Carbon dioxide is profoundly reduced because unlike composting where oxygen is abundant and needed, in this process it is eliminated.  This is why virtually all of the carbon in the waste material ends up in the soil.

No heat is generated or needed.  The microbes in the bokashi culture mix are non-pathogenic organisms ideally suited to thrive and dominate the metabolic process of breaking down waste in an environment that is very hostile to competitors.  Normal pathogens in the waste material perish and become themselves metabolized (broken down to nutrients).  Generally speaking in nature, you are either eating or being eaten.

6.    Bye-bye maggots, flies, vermin, and stinky garbage:

The noxious odors associated with rotting food occur when microbes begin to metabolize waste material.  These odors are associated with products being formed.  Ammonia, sulfurous emissions, and putrefaction in general are frequently linked to anaerobic decomposition but it requires a neutral or alkaline setting to occur.

When you compost and the pile gets wet, oxygen gets excluded and that is why composting can produce foul odors and it attracts flies.  If you have meat or dairy products in the pile, things get much worse.  Rats and vermin are attracted.  They don’t like spoiled food generally but know fresh food is to be found in the pile.

When you ferment under acidic conditions, the odor is different.  Essentially you are pickling the waste material.  It has a sweet acrid pickle smell to it.  No maggots, flies, or vermin can survive in this system because they need oxygen.  Once the process is complete, the material is buried in the soil where microbes rapidly digest the fermented material rendering a rich soil within typically 7 – 10 days.  The buried fermented material is not attractive to animals and is bitter to the taste.

It is important to mix it well with the soil and cover it with about 8 inches of soil so that it can be quickly degraded.  In the winter you can leave it in a separate container frozen all winter and then put it in the ground when soil is soft.  Fermenting is done all throughout the year unlike composting.

7.    Conserve Water:

We already pointed out how fermenting conserves water.  The retained water in the system goes straight to soil.  More water is generated (released) as the microbes break down the waste material.  You never have to add water to the system.  You remove the liquid tea and dilute 1:100 with water to feed your house plants and garden or lawn.  Water vapor is not lost to the atmosphere contributing to smog and air pollution and the heating up of the earth.

Soil amended with fermented waste material holds water better requiring less frequent watering of the garden or lawn.

8.    Divert waste from landfills:

Bokashi fermenting of waste means you are no longer sending your organic waste to the garbage can.  The only thing heading to the landfill is non-recyclable material.  No plastic bags or pet waste goes to the landfill.  Save land for a better use.

9.    Divert waste from composting:

I realize that many people who love composting may be upset to hear that this not the best way to handle organic waste.  Those who think it through deeply will come to realize that composting is inefficient.  It is better than land filling but it is far, far, inferior to bokashi fermenting.

When you oxidize material it takes a lot of energy and uses up our precious water resource.  You have to mix carbon rich material with nitrogen rich material to establish a proper mix (C:N 30:1).  This consumes carbon that would be better used in other applications.  The carbon is oxidized forming carbon dioxide that does contribute to heating up of the planet.

You have to add water to the compost as it is turned to sustain about 50% hydration.  This is a waste of one of our precious resources.  We will run out of both water and carbon if we continue in this trend.

Composting is slow compared to acidic anaerobic fermenting (conservatively taking 10 times longer) and industrially takes up a lot of land and consumes a lot of fuel.  That can be eliminated overnight.  Scientifically it makes no sense.

10. Save Money:

The average cost to bokashi ferment your waste material will be about $4 per month.  If you pay for garbage hauling, because your can size and frequency of having it picked up are dramatically reduced, there is a real savings.  Most of those who pay for a pickup service at home save $10 – $15 dollars per month on the trash bill.

You won’t need those plastic bags anymore.  You won’t need to buy chemical fertilizers or pesticides and hopefully you will realize that they are more harmful than helpful.

Commercial operators can process organic waste at about $25 per ton which is far below their current operating cost for materials.

In summary, there are many reasons to consider why you should make the change.  Adopting microbes to do your work is easy.  They work 24 hours per day, never complain, eat virtually all organic waste material and do it quickly.  They thank you for the privilege by giving you great things for your garden.  You will enjoy the vibrant lush garden products at a savings in both labor and cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windbuchencom.jpg

We are in the dead of winter, a wonderful time to gather thoughts and contemplate the arrival of spring and summer.  In the Pacific Northwest we are fortunate to have mild winters.

It is so easy to ferment your food scraps.  And it’s a good feeling to know that in the process you save money on your garbage bill, get rich soil in return, and feed your plants natural nutrients.  No more smelly garbage, fruit flies, rats or vermin to contend with.  But you’ve got to put the fermented material back in the ground.

Bokashi fermenting involves mixing the food scraps with a microbial culture mix in a specialized fermenter that excludes oxygen.  The microbes are active when the oxygen levels are brought to very low levels where other microbes perish.  The microbes release enzymes (chemicals) that breakdown food waste to a form that is then easily metabolized by soil microbes.  It is a two step process.

Fermenting is a pickling process. The food scraps are first pickled in a specialized fermenter, and then the fermented product is put it in the ground.  It is 10 times faster than composting and much easier.  Greenhouse gases are eliminated.  You end up with virtually 100% of the waste material going back to the soil where it is broken down even further.

There are many advantages to this method of disposing of food scraps.  Nutrients are put right back into the soil and the population of soil microbes expands in numbers and diversity.  Plants do very well in this kind of soil and you no longer need to use fertilizers and pesticides to get vibrant healthy plants.

In the Seattle area we rarely have frozen ground to worry about.   We had a few weeks of frozen ground this winter.   Lots of people interested in fermenting food scraps wonder what to do when the weather is cold and the ground is frozen.  It’s wonderful to ferment your food scraps in the home where it’s warm and cozy.

You don’t have to take the garbage out in the cold and rainy weather and won’t have to empty your fermenter for weeks with a proper fermenting device……………but eventually, depending on how much waste you generate you are going to make that trip to the garden (or planter box) to bury the fermented product to feed your hungry soil microbes.

What do you do when the ground is frozen?   That’s a good question.  And you might also wonder how cold weather affects the rate of fermented food waste material being broken down in the soil by those hungry microbes.  Does it take longer?   Can you save the fermented waste material until the ground is thawed out and then bury it?

I want to provide answers to these and other question I often get and have gathered some photographs that I think you will find interesting and helpful.

Winter is here…ground is frozen…what to do?

The most efficient bokashi fermenting is done with two fermenters.  One fermenter is being filled layer by layer with food waste and a sprinkle of bokashi culture mix (specialized microbes) while the filled fermenter is sealed and set aside.  When the fermenter being filled is nearly full, you normally take the sealed fermenter outside and bury the contents under 8 inches of soil mixing it well into the soil.

The just emptied fermenter is then put into action to fill layer by layer food scraps and culture mix giving time for the just filled and sealed fermenter to complete its process of anaerobic fermenting.  It takes most people about 4 to 6 weeks to fill a single fermenter.  So you will head to the garden about once every 4 to 6 weeks for a burial and mixing process.  This process can continue indefinitely and is truly a sustainable way of disposing of food waste material.

If the weather is cold, and the ground is frozen, most people just dump the batch of fermented food scraps into a large container outside with a lid.  It is perfectly okay to let it freeze too.  You can fill a container or two all winter if you like and await the spring thaw.

When the ground is once again soft, work the fermented product into the soil and you will observe the soil microbes rapidly metabolize all of the wasted material in short order.  All of the nutrients go right to the soil.  Your vegetable garden will be great……..and nothing was lost in waiting out the winter.  If you have properly fermented the food waste you will have no smelly garbage in the outside container.  Animals will not bother it.  We have lots of clients in Eastern Canada, Upstate New York, the Midwestern US and Alaska who experience long winters.  They know it’s easy even in the winter to process food waste.

Although it is difficult to accurately measure how fast the fermented material is metabolized in the soil because many different kinds of food scraps may be processed, one easy way to gauge the activity is to filter the soil at various intervals after the fermented food scraps are mixed with soil to see how long it takes for recognizable material to disappear.  In the summer virtually all material (except pits and bones- see below) will be gone in about 7 – 10 days.  In the middle of winter buried in frozen ground the same material will take 20 – 30 days to disappear.  Even though it appears that the rate of metabolism is reduced when the weather is cold, the overall assimilation in the soil is quite rapid.

Indoor Bokashi Fermenting:

If you have a heated garage, an underground facility where the temperature is controlled or live in an area where your climate can be controlled indoors, you might want to consider fermenting your food scraps in a plantar box.  You don’t need a lot of land or soil to ferment your food scraps and then have them converted to nutrients in the soil.  If the temperature is sustained near room temperature, the metabolic rate for uptake by the soil process is rapid.

How much soil is needed to process bokashi fermented food waste?

We’ve made the point that you can bury the fermented food waste in the same place over and over if you like.  Earthworms love the fermented food scraps and will migrate to the areas where it is buried and mixed with soil.  Put some worms in the container if you want to use a plantar box.

One of the great things about bokashi fermenting is that you can do it in an apartment or condominium with a balcony if you have room for a plantar box on the balcony.  You may want to have a couple of plantar boxes so you can mix soil and fermented food scraps in one and move soil from that box to other boxes where you want to grow plants.  You can create a very lovely balcony garden.

I have fermented all of the food scraps I produce in a two person household for 8 continuous months in the same 25 gallon size plantar box.  I started with the empty plantar box and placed ordinary soil into the box that was screened through a ¼ x ¼ inch wire mesh.  I could then check the soil to see how much waste material had not been broken down in the soil by filtering the soil through the mesh at timed intervals after burial in the plantar box.

You can see the empty 25 gallon container, filtered soil, filled container, and 5 gallon fermenter loaded with fermented food scraps ready to be mixed with soil in the container in the pictures taken when I started.  In the summer it took about 7 – 10 days to convert fermented food scraps to rich soil.

Every 4 – 6 weeks I would then move the soil to a wheel barrel filtering it through the wire mesh to observe what had not broken down before mixing the next batch of fermented material with the same soil putting it all back to the container.

You can bokashi ferment weeds, grass clippings, flowers, and virtually anything that is derived from plant or animal material and mix it with the soil to restore the soil to a much richer material for your plants to use.  You can see the fermented food scraps in the upper left corner, flowers and weeds before fermenting (right side), and in the container after bokashi fermenting (lower left corner).  The fermented materials are mixed with the soil and covered with about 8 inches of soil and then allowed to process for a week or two (lower right image).

The flower stems, grass clippings and wood chips took only 7 days to ferment before they were mixed with soil.  They were completely taken up by the soil in the next week.

Bones and Pits……How long before they disappear?

People are frequently surprised to hear that bones will disappear when properly bokashi fermented.  Larger bones and pits will take a little longer to completely break down and disappear so they are no longer recognizable.

Small bones and cartilage disappear rapidly in less than 10 days in the summer but the larger bones and pits will be observed if you look for them.  But they are very different once they have been fermented.  There is no harm in leaving them alone but if you want to get rid of them in the soil quickly, it is easy.

You’ve got to do a little work and I have shown you how to do it in the picture below.  After 8 months when I filtered all the soil in the container, I had a small pile of bones and pits that were still recognizable as shown on the upper right image.  I’ve also observed that grape stems and certain waxy vegetable skins might hang around for awhile if they are not bruised or damaged before fermenting.  Cooked food goes very quickly after fermenting.

Back to the bones and pits!  If you pull them out and place them on a flat rock (wear safety goggles) and give them a crush with a hammer or other stone, they will easily break into small pieces and fibers that are then put back to the soil.  If you leave them a week or two in the soil before the crush, the bones become very soft and fibrous.

This “bone meal” is an excellent source of calcium and phosphorous and other minerals and will help your plants.  If you leave them alone it is fine….just a time release type of delivery to the soil.  I like to break mine apart.  You can see how they crushed into fibers and small pieces that were then put back to the soil surface and mixed in to go the path of all the other nutrients in the soil.

After 8 months of continuous use, the plantar box appears no fuller than when I started.  It is in the dead of winter and we’ve had some heavy rain but you can see the soil is dark and rich (although a little clumpy because of the heavy rain).  I have observed the rate of breakdown in the cold weather is about half that of what I observe in the summer but still rapid.  There are no flies, foul odors or problems in processing all of my material in this single container.

Bokashi fermenting dog and cat poop?

People frequently ask me if they could ferment the pet waste in the fermenters.  Although it could be done and would certainly break down and be taken up in the soil, we discourage this process in the containers that are going to be used for a vegetable garden.

Pet waste is generally alkaline and carries with it a number of potential parasites and pathogens that can get into the water supply.  It is an important point; how to safely dispose of pet waste without contaminating the ground water.

We have constructed a special fermenter with an accelerant to handle pet waste (Bokashi PetCycle Waste Disposal System) and use the same microbial culture mix in the fermenters to eliminate odors and convert waste into nutrients for the soil.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/petcycle.html

If you are collecting the waste in plastic bags and putting it in the garbage cans, it will end up in a landfill where it will with the plastic cause a lot of problems.  Methane gas will be produced and the potential for ground water contamination persists.  Those plastic bags will stay around for thousands of years.

If you put it in the PetCycle™ disposal system to ferment, the smell will be eliminated and the waste material will be converted to a high nitrogen rich “pickled” waste that can then be put safely into the soil where you want to grow ornamental plants.  Even though it looks awful…like gravy………it is not smelly and is taken up by the soil microbes quickly leaving rich nutrient soil for your plants.  You mix it in the soil in a hole in the same way you process bokashi fermented food scraps after the fermenting is complete.

In summary, it is easy to let the microbes do their work.  Even in the winter when the ground is frozen they process material.  Just set your fermented material outside and let it sit until the ground is soft and easy to work.  Then mix it well with soil and cover it over with about 8 inches of soil so it can be incorporated back to soil.

If you love plants, like to grow your own vegetable garden and build beautiful ornamental gardens and want to get away from chemical fertilizers and pesticides, bokashi fermenting is for you.  It’s easy, fun and fast.  Remember to dilute your bokashi tea 1 to 100 with water before adding it to your house plants and garden.  Give the soil about 2 weeks to process any freshly buried fermented product before planting seedlings.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:La_Boqueria.JPG

In the midst of all the bad news about climate change, poisons in the water supply, soil, and food supply it is most encouraging to discover how creative we are in finding solutions to these problems and I for one am an advocate for and believe in the possibility of making a positive change.  There are great possibilities before us and the future is looking brighter in so many ways.

The good news is that we are able to shape our future in a positive way by making good choices.   Individuals are making choices.   I think in the farming communities and in the grass root choices that people are taking upon their own initiative we are solving important problems.

We’ve been advocating recycling organic waste in a responsible way to minimize polluting, to recover useful nutrients that can be used to feed plants, and to prevent the movement of organic recyclable materials to the landfill and to get them out of composting sites because they are in fact more efficiently and cost effectively processed by fermenting anaerobically.  We are advocating acidic anaerobic fermentation popularly known as Bokashi fermenting.

We already discussed the mechanisms involved in the process and those who are still confused about methane production should review the information we have already provided or discuss the issue with a competent microbiologist or chemist.  It is a matter of fact that methanogens, the methane producers are incapable of surviving or functioning in a bokashi fermenting system.  No methane is produced in an acidic anaerobic process.

Consumer Supported Agriculture:

One of the encouraging trends in consumer activity relates to the growing trend over the last 20 years to buy produce locally.  Farmer markets are thriving and a lot of fun. It  clearly makes a lot of sense to buy food products produced locally because less energy is required in transporting those products to market.  Food is fresher and requires no chemical preserving.

There is also a savings on packaging with fewer petro chemicals diverted to packaging when food is taken at a farmers market.  We all benefit in this process.  Should we be concerned about local grown food quality?   Of course!  There’s the good news.  Farmers and the community are joining together to make it better.  Consumers can find a CSA participating farm willing to sell high quality produce directly at a discount benefitting the farmer and the consumer.

CSA Farms in the US

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

Consumers want to buy directly.  Farmers get better pricing.  You want high quality tasty produce as fresh as possible.  It’s a simple idea.  Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a membership program widely adopted across the US.  In many areas the waiting list to become a member far exceeds the membership in a local CSA.  The local produce market is widely adapted in many parts of the world where farmer markets are common place.

There are approximately 2 million farms in the US and 80% are small farms.  Many farmers are now organizing and working directly with their consumers setting into play the CSA program.  Consumers contract with the farmer and those smaller farmers are advocating organic methods in producing their crops.  They are getting away from pesticides and fertilizers that toxify soil and product.  We all stand to benefit.  How will we sustain those farming practices?  How can we make the soil better able to meet the demand for produce.

Sustainable Farming Practices:

A sustainable farming practice is hard to achieve using traditional methods in farming.  Soils require nutrients to feed the crops.  We are today aware that it is microbial populations that play an equally if not possibly even more important role in healthy soils needed to support crops and produce.

Adding petro chemical fertilizers and pesticides invariably suppress the natural diverse microbial activity in the soil and these practices have resulted in unnatural soil conditions that are less able to yield consistent quality output.  Those chemicals used to “improve” the soil end up in the food chain too………a risk we should not be willing to accept.

Recycling organic waste to the farm by composting is one approach but in practice it is impractical to meet the growing demand for food production.  It takes too much energy and time.  It requires a lot of energy.  It releases to the atmosphere heat, carbon dioxide, and water vapor and if done poorly numerous other green house gases are also produced.  If we are polluting and changing the weather conditions as we farm we are not truly sustainable.

Rotating crops to fix nitrogen has been for many years a standard practice but it can not meet the demand and we can not afford to leave lands fallow.

Sustainability means we have to match production methods and consuming (purchasing) methods to minimize damage done to the air, water and soil.   It needs to be done in such a manner that quality is sustained.  With ever increasing demand for quality products that stress our soils, water, and the air comes the responsibility of finding a sustainable solution.

We know that we are doing a poor job of recycling our waste materials.  We consume and discard with little regard for how that discarded material could pollute and damage the soil.  Landfills are obvious problems.

Cities are advocating consumers send their organic waste curbside so it can then be delivered to composting “factories” releasing into the atmosphere tons of carbon dioxide, clearly contributing to global warming, tying up precious land that could be used in a better way, and burning much petro fuel hauling and processing the organic waste.  They should be adopting bokashi fermenting on an industrial scale.

Home owners may choose to bokashi ferment the organic waste on site instead of sending it curbside.  If you bokashi ferment your own food scraps you eliminate smelly garbage that attracts insects, rats and vermin and get the benefit of converting food waste to fertilizer for your garden and house plants. http://bokashicycle.com/

New Earth Farm and Bon Appetit – Eastablish Sustainable Farming

We need to get restaurants, schools and factories generating waste material in the loop recycling intelligently.  Bon Appetit Management Company has become a model for what can be done in sustainability. http://www.bamco.com/page/3/sustainable-food-service.htm They are a restaurant company that has for years taken responsibility in ecologically handling food.

They support local grown food for their restaurants and have in Oregon closed the loop sending waste material from the restaurant back to the farm for processing back to soil to feed future crops.  They have partnered with Dos Sequoias and the New Earth Farm establishing a truly sustainable farming practice.

New Earth Farm Processing Bon Appetit Food Waste using Bokashi Fermenting

Abundant Harvest is a CSA located in Hillsboro, Oregon providing fresh, healthy produce to consumers in their community.  http://abundantharvest.biz/join-our-farm

Farming is done at Dos Squoias Farm and New Earth Farm and the owners, Scott Olsen and Steve Radtke, are working together producing high quality produce and have taken an important step in establishing a sustainable farming practice.  They are using bokashi fermenting to recover nutrients from waste material.

Scott had previously tried composting food scraps but found it was taking a lot of time and the turn over was far too slow to work into the soil in a sustainable way.  Since he has started bokashi fermenting the process seems much easier.  Food scraps are placed in 55 gallon fermenters and allowed to process 1 week.  They are then placed on an off-loader to drain the bokashi tea (used as a liquid fertilizer on crops after diluting 1: 100 in water).

It takes about 7 days to ferment the food scraps from Bon Appetit.  After collecting the liquid nutrients, the fermented waste is tilled into the soil easily with a tractor and tilling attachment.  In this example ¾ ton of fermented material was tilled into a strip of soil 2 feet by 100 feet and showed rapid metabolism by soil microbes within the week (photo insert).

Numerous measurements on crop yields and soil quality will be obtained to establish and document efficiencies in waste recycling at the New Earth Farm throughout the year.  The speed at which the waste material is returned to the soil is very evident and as has been noted in other discussions on the subject, virtually all of the material is going back to the soil as opposed to only about half of the nutrients in composting.

Here we see that a full cycle has been achieved.  High quality produce was grown and sold to the Bon Appetit restaurant.  Consumers at the restaurant enjoyed a healthy tasty meal prepared by great chefs.  Nothing was discarded and wasted.  Scraps were returned to the farm and rapidly using bokashi fermenting put back to the soil for subsequent product.

Soil nutrients and microbes are supported and rejuvenated.  Green house gases are minimized in recycling.  We’ve minimized the use of petro fuels and can grow our produce organically without a reliance on pesticides and fertilizers.  This is a truly sustainable cycle.

In our next blog we will provide additional information and tips on residential bokashi fermenting and yard waste handling.

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