Living in the country, I have the luxury of a backyard compost pile. Right now it’s overflowing with acrid slop, but eventually it will yield dark, rich soil nutrients for the garden. If my potato peels, leftover rice, and parsley stems had been buried in a landfill, deprived of sun or air, those same scraps would have given rise to methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.Read the full article in the Boston Globe Magazine section here
Nationwide, there’s a lot of potential in all that slop. In 2008, Americans generated nearly 32 million tons of food waste, and less than 3 percent of that was composted, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Do you compost?
