Not only is compost good for your plants and improves the tilth and health of your soil, but using it is very good for the environment as well.

Bear Path Farm is among a growing number of commercial compost operations that utilize food waste from restaurants, supermarkets, public and private schools, colleges and universities and other institutions as a portion of the raw materials they process. This food waste includes: kitchen prep waste, plate scraps, wax coated cardboard, past dated food as well as other paper products such as napkins and paper plates.

Historically this waste has been disposed of in landfills, which causes a couple of problems, one of which is particularly threatening to the issue of climate change and global warming. Food waste degrades fairly rapidly in a landfill, but, without the presence of oxygen (similar to septic tanks), the food waste is broken down by anaerobic bacteria which release methane as a by-product of their metabolic process. What does this mean? From a global warming point of view a given amount of methane is 23 times more threatening as a greenhouse gas than the same amount of carbon dioxide. So if food waste can be kept out of a landfill by composting it instead, our environment benefits. In 2006 Bear Path Farm composted almost 200 tons of food waste from area colleges, restaurants and small markets. Using the Environmental Benefits Calculator available from the Northeast Recycling Council it was determined that by composting this food waste instead of disposing of it at a landfill, Bear Path Farm reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 11 metric tons.

The other problem associated with disposing of food waste in landfills is both environmental and economic. The more waste that a landfill receives, the quicker that it fills up. Once it’s nearly full, another landfill has to be permitted and built somewhere else, maybe 100 or more miles away. This can result in significant transportation expenses – not to mention an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from the waste-hauling trucks.

Compost is excellent for improving degraded soils and making them productive again for food production or ornamental crops. Bear Path Farm has, for several years, provided compost for the Metro Farm project in Springfield, MA, supervised by the Hampden County Corrections Department. Tough, beaten up soil was slowly converted to productive vegetable gardens for the benefit of inner city residents.
Compost is a renewable, sustainable product unlike most commercial fertilizers.
Since compost has a good balance of major and micro nutrients it can effectively replace significant quantities of commercial NPK fertilizer which is fossil fuel based.