Recently, we happily reported that Lastic Bamboo Resin earned DIN CERTCO's Home and Garden Compostable Certification. Earning this certification means that products made from Lastic Bamboo Resin, like straws, utensils, and food boxes, can serve as guilt-free and nutritious fodder for one's backyard compost pile. Home and garden composting is a sustainable, energy-free way to create nutrient-rich, environmentally-friendly fertilizer for one's homegrown plants.
Yet, another composting type exists: industrial composting. Like home and garden composting, industrial composting creates fertilizer. But, unlike home and garden composting, industrial composting can require high energy and, as its name blatantly screams, is done on an industrial scale. But how do companies execute industrial composting? What materials are industrially composted? And, how environmentally friendly is industrial composting?
Businesses involved in industrial composting (also known as commercial composting) must industrially compost at scale. Therefore, they need to resemble a residential composting setup but reap several orders of magnitude more output. To reap more output, they need more input. These inputs are the same that residential composters use and come in the form of food waste, Lastic straws, some yard debris, etc. We'll use the blanket term "organic waste" for industrial compost's inputs.
So, the first thing an industrial composting business needs are subscribers—usually residents, restaurants, grocery stores, and other businesses. Subscribers must place their organic waste in special bins and then move the containers to pick-up spots at predetermined times. Logically, the industrial composting business needs a fleet of trucks to transport organic waste to the composting site. These pick-up schemes operate in the same way as rubbish or recycling collection ones.
After trucks have finished collecting, they return to the composting site. This is where all the composting happens, and a good site needs proper composting equipment. At the very least, an industrial composting operation needs to add water to its massive compost piles. This basic type of composting is called Static Pile Composting.
More elaborate schemes will use machinery to optimize composting. One type, known as Aerated Static Pile Composting, uses several air pumps that "inject" air into the middle of the compost piles. This process brings oxygen, nitrogen (the most plentiful gas in the air), and carbon dioxide to the middle of the pile. Unfortunately, static compost piles with no aeration can become behemoths, meaning the inner parts of the pile will become starved of oxygen, a major ingredient in the composting process. Aerated Static Pile Composting seeks to solve this problem.
Another highly effective industrial composting method, called In-Vessel Composting, involves putting the compost into an enclosed space, usually in the form of a large metal tank. This method allows industrial composters to manipulate the organic waste's environment by completely controlling temperature, moisture, and light exposure.
We've got more to say about industrial composting. So, next week, we'll talk about which inputs are and aren't allowed. We'll also discuss which bioplastics are suitable for industrial composting schemes.
If you have any input or feedback about industrial composting or biodegradation in general, don't hesitate to contact the Island Leaf team here: www.islandleaf.co/contact
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