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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Nature Mill indoor composter



This composter looks nice and very fast. It does consume 10 watts of power but it looks really convenient. I suppose it could be run off of solar power though. In the video they talk about lowering greenhouse gas emissions. This wouldn't do that. When plant matter breaks down in compost or in the woods, doesn't matter, it releases the same amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide ultimately. Just the speed in which it happens changes.

But, it is convenient and it saves loads of garbage going to the dump therefore saves in fuel costs for the garbage trucks and prevents greenhouse gases from that aspect.

It also replenishes the soil. Think of it this way. We humans are like machines. We grow enough food to "almost" feed all 6.5 billion of us. In doing so, we suck out all the nutrients from the soil as it is stored in the food. We eat the food and then it ends up in the sewer and then to a processing plant. So, most of it never gets back to the soil where it belongs. We are effectively pumping billions of pounds a day of nutrients from the soil and putting it elsewhere. That is really bad. We are methodically stripping just the nutrients from the soil and it is slowly rendering our food void of any value except to make us feel full. In other words, we as a species are slowly killing ourselves because we find composting toilets distasteful. Hmmmm, maybe we should rethink our positions.

Richard

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  3. actually the aerobic decomposition does produce carbon dioxide, but when the organic matter decomposes anaerobically (such as in a landfill) it instead produces methane gas more abundantly; from a greenhouse gas perspective, methane has been found to contribute to atmospheric warming 25 times greater than carbon dioxide.

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