Composting

Pilot Program for Home Composting proposed from Pissouri Community Council

Pissouri Community Council, a pioneer in environmental issues and now the holder of the title of the Environmental Capital of Cyprus for 2019 (as you can see in the photo below), has decided to launch a radical pilot program based on the home composting with the ultimate goal of reducing the mass and volume of organic waste from the household waste of our Community.
Specifically, within the framework of the program, 20 households of the Community with a large volume of organic waste will be subsidized by the purchase of a home composter, for the conversion of this waste into compost through the composter that will be placed in the yard of these households. The beneficiaries of this pilot program will be trained in this field of composting by the Environmental Advisor of the Community Council Mr. Nikolas Nikolaou (Chemical Engineer) in collaboration with the organization ACPELIA (https://www.acpelia.org/) and AKTI (http://www.akti.org.cy/) and Dr. Michalis Loizidis (Chemical Engineering) in order to successfully implement the continuous operation of home Composters. They should also work with the Community Council's Environmental Adviser to answer some quarterly questions (every three months) about composting, so that to build a comprehensive set of results over time, which will be used for expanding further the pilot composting program to all interested households in Pissouri Community Area.
The composters will be about the shape of the figure below. They will be able to create the necessary fungi through aerobic process (with natural ventilation), for the conversion of organic waste into organic soil. This soil can be used in the gardens of the beneficiary households in the Composting Pilot program or anywhere else. In short, it is a process of converting waste into soil with increased nutrients (compost), like the process that takes place in the digestion of organic animal waste.
The beneficiaries will be selected through the interested residents of the Community of Pissouri. The expression of interest for their participation in the pilot program can be made through the google forms to which some questions will be asked to answer for the most objective choice of the final beneficiaries of households.
Selection Criteria:
(a) the interest in participating in that pilot program
(b) the willingness to cooperate with the Environmental Adviser of the Pissouri Community Council
(c) the volume and mass of household organic waste
(d) the environmental interest of the household
Through the Pilot program we will have the following benefits for the households of our Community that will be selected:
• Free composters at home
• Reduction of the mass of their organic waste
• Additional discount at the end for garbage collection through the decision of the Community Council in April 2020
• Production of primary organic soil by households for their garden
• Example to imitate for other households in our Community

In total for our Community and the Community Council there will be the following benefits:
• Implementation of a Pioneer Pilot composting application for our Community and for Cyprus in general
• Reduction of the total volume of Community waste and therefore reduction of total expenditures in relation to waste costs
• Through the continuous upgrading of the institution there will be an increase in environmental awareness
• Proposal to the Government for an additional grant of the pilot application with data now in our hands for the waste.

What exactly is Composting?

1. It is an environmentally friendly management of organic waste

Composting / fertilization, as mentioned in Greek terminology and from the synthetic of the word we can understand that it is the conversion of some organic waste with a process that returns the natural organic waste, in a natural way, to nature in the form of fertilizer. It is essentially a recycling of nature as opposed to anthropogenic materials. That is, by taking an organic material, such as food scraps, flowers, wood, etc., and turning it into organic fertilizer, which, once dissolved, nourishes the soil, and supports plant growth.

2. Why is it good to compost?

Now, in Cyprus and in our Community, of course, 45-55% of all household waste is organic. Composting removes waste from its entrances to waste sites, thus protecting and reducing the production of drains and methane gas, a powerful greenhouse gas and one of the most important gases that affect climate change.

3. With composting we contribute to the fight against global warming

Fertilization (composting) has an incredibly positive effect on global warming, ensuring that we have less biodegradable waste that will end up in landfills. An obvious question is, in fact, since they can be easily rebuilt, why is it not possible to do so in a landfill? The sad thing is that even the biodegradable waste that ends up in the landfill does not have access to the necessary oxygen that is needed and needed for these materials to dissolve.
Even materials called photo-soluble materials, such as recyclable plastic bags, biodegradable materials, materials that have been on the market in recent years with indicative characteristics of self-dissolving material, have zero chance of disintegrating in waste, due to the fact that so many are collected and discarded. one on top of the other, tightly tied together that have no sun exposure and are not well ventilated. Furthermore, research studies have shown that even newspapers (paper that is biodegradable) and which make up 25% of organic waste can last up to fifty years without being biodegradable. It is worth noting that edible waste (easily decomposed, green grass, fruit and generally biodegradable waste), which reaches about 90 million tons of waste each year, is recognizable up to 25 years later, i.e. it takes more than 25 years. Disintegration of these materials that we all know that if we leave them in our garden in a month, they will have almost disintegrated and in 3 months their complete disintegration occurs (greens and vegetable residues).

4. With composting we have a reduction in greenhouse gases

Ground waste contributes to the emission of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other greenhouse gases, because it is transported to long-distance trucks until they reach their destination. When the waste reaches the dumped area, it is slowly dissolved and anaerobes are dissolved in a closed concrete area, where they produce 50% methane and 50% carbon dioxide, a ratio much higher than the percentage of methane produced in composting waste. Since methane is 25 times more harmful to global warming than carbon dioxide emissions, the problem could easily be solved at home by recycling food and composting biodegradable waste into a composter or special basket.

5. By composting, we reduce the harmful fertilizers in nature and give back to nature the organic fertilizer that comes from materials produced by nature and is rich in nutrients.

The process of making chemical fertilizers is extremely energy intensive and the use of electricity can lead to the use of many non-renewable sources. Once placed in the soil, fertilizers that are made of ammonium sulfate and ammonium phosphate usually contribute to higher amounts of nitric oxide in the environment than organic fertilizers.
Chemical emissions act much faster than natural products and there is a risk of over-fertilizing plants with the ability to create toxins such as arsenic, cadmium and uranium, which are linked to chemical fertilizers. By changing the method of fertilizing plants, from chemical to 'green' fertilizers, you can help in a positive impact on the environment, to a much greater extent than you think.