Biological versus Technical Nutrients

I just read Cradle to Cradle, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, and found one concept in their book particularly interesting. The book primarily addresses how products, buildings, and systems can be designed to be beneficial for the earth, the population, and the economy, rather than harmful or just "less bad". Their concept of technical vs. biological nutrients is incredibly relevant.

Ideally, in the human world we would treat our resources like the natural world, where everything cycles through different systems; the waste of one system is food for another. This isn't the case with our systems, even when one considers the growing recycling industry, but we could easily make it so by viewing all materials as either technical or biological nutrients. Biological nutrients are things that are compostable and can be fed back into the natural world as a nutritious, safe resource for plants and animals. Technical nutrients are things that can be fed back into the industrial system endlessly to be reused to make new products.

Currently our recycling system is flawed, as much of what we recycle is actually "down-cycled" into products of lesser quality which then can only be made into even shoddier products. The adding of dyes, paints, or solvents to a material contaminates it when it comes to future use, and weakens it in such a way that it can't be used again for the same quality of product. So if you have a green soda bottle, that plastic is still recyclable, but only as a different, oftentimes lower quality product (like a plastic shopping bag), or a product that cannot be recycled after its use (like a plastic park bench).

There are exceptions to this, but system-wide we don't have a good method for recycling materials into products of equal quality and value. Even materials which should be easy to recycle, like metal, are often contaminated because of current recycling methods. For example, aluminum soda cans are often lined in plastic, and cars are crushed into a large block of material, rather than being disassembled to retrieve their copper, steel, and other resources.

While our recycling systems, local and national, are in desperate need of revision and renovation, we can separate and recycle our biological nutrients from (what should be) our technical nutrients.

As it stands now, unless you participate in some sort of recycling program, technical nutrients and biological nutrients are mixed together in your trash, then buried in the ground at a landfill where they are sealed off from soil and air. What this means is that even the biodegradable waste like banana peels and newspapers won't break down because the right aerobic (or air-loving) bacteria won't grow in this environment, and so there's nothing to facilitate the composting, or rotting, process. I wish every city had a composting program and was vigilant about separating out its waste, but this just isn't the case.

If the city won't do it, it's up to the citizens to make it happen. By all means write letters to your mayor, attend city council meetings, and make phone calls to your city's waste management department, but in the mean time, take matters into your own hands and start composting. Puteverything you can into your home compost bin. If you know of neighbors or apartment dwellers who are unable to compost, offer your bin to them as well, it will only enrich your compost and make for a more beautiful world.

I think the idea of technical and biological nutrients is brilliant, and I intend to explore it further. But in the mean time, I know exactly what to do with all my biological nutrients to make sure they are returned safely and responsibly to the earth.

Composting: The Basics

As I've firmly stated many times before, I truly believe that composting will save the world. If everybody composted, either in their backyard or through a municipal program, we could cut our waste by at least a third, and possibly by one half. Composting is the ultimate form of recycling, as it takes your waste and turns it into a rich food for the earth through an all-natural process that has no harmful effects or toxic by-products. I understand that composting can seem time-consuming and difficult at first, but as long as you have a diverse, well-aerated pile, you'll have no trouble at all.

To compost you just need a pile of organic material, but it’s easiest to put this in some sort of bin or container. Examples of compost bins are in the resources section at the end of the article. Once you have a bin set up, either indoors or outdoors, contribute all biological material to it. This includes kitchen scraps, hair and nail trimmings, yard waste like grass clippings and leaves, the contents of your vacuum cleaner, pizza boxes, and any wool or cotton cloth that’s been worn out.

Never layer more than six inches of one kind of material into the bin, otherwise the bacteria that break everything down won’t have a diverse enough food source and the pile will start to stink. Properly done, compost never smells of anything more than the forest floor. Shovel the pile around once a month so that the stuff on the top is now on the bottom and vice versa. This ensures that the bacteria have plenty of air. Without it, aerobic (air-loving) bacteria move out and anaerobic (non-air-loving) bacteria move in. This is bad, because anaerobic bacteria are the ones that stink.

After six to eight months, you should be seeing a rich, dark material that looks like the mulch or compost you see in all those Better Homes and Gardens pictures. This is finished compost, and is the best thing your garden or yard could ever get. Spread it around in your vegetable beds, flower gardens, and even in a thin layer over your lawn. You can fork it in if you like, but the worms in the soil will go mad for it and dig it in for you if you’re willing to wait a week or so.

Compost returns important nutrients to the soil, helps keep moisture locked in, and encourages all sorts of good bacteria, fungi, worms, and insects to move into your soil and start working for your benefit. After composting for years, I can’t imagine doing anything else with my biological waste, and wouldn’t want to.

The current contents of my composting bin.