Evolution of composting in Whitehorse, Yukon
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- Опубліковано 8 тра 2023
- Its fascinating to note the changes to the City of Whitehorse composting process over the last 20 years. Their focus has been unwavering - to produce a quality product. What has not changed over the last 20 years is the amount of plastic in the organic material coming from the community. Fortunately, most of it can be removed. Its International Compost Awareness Week, with a focus on healthy soil. We all need to be thinking about having compost free of plastic for a healthy soil!
I found your videos by searching compost too dry. I am subscribing and liking hopefully more people will find you a different way! I will be adding another video to my interesting by others playlist which is a library for gardening information. Thanks!
You are welcome!
Regarding plastics, I feel your pain! I have a mini farm and keep 8-9 yards of compost in process. It's very difficult to police inputs, especially herbicides.
Indeed!
I really admire your work and enjoy it.
Thank you!
It's always a pleasure to hear from someone that really understands composting. We're looking at switching from turned windrows on the farm to ASP for the reason you mentioned - freezing. Since our climate is similar to Whitehorse, I'm wondering if there is a minimum cross-sectional size to maintain temperature in winter and what "optimal" temperature Whitehorse runs at during the "curing" phase - after the higher "thermophillic" heating? Does Whitehorse use an insulating cover on their windrows? Thank you.
Thanks for the question. Minimal cross sectional size in really cold climates is about 14 ft high and 30 ft wide. Its not really practical to make larger piles with your average loader. Optimal temperature during curing is about 40-50 C, but it usually starts out a bit higher. No insulating covers used at Whitehorse. Compost itself is a very good insulator. Thanks, John
Wow, that's bigger than I thought. In a windrow of that size, that’s about 7 cu-yds per foot. At that size, the composting bedding pack barn on our small dairy only generates enough compost for a 140 foot long windrow. As you talked about in ua-cam.com/video/vTaAHq8stqo/v-deo.html, turned windrows take up a lot more space. At that size, we could easily process all our compost over the warmer months. That’s awesome.
The fact that no insulating cover is a possibility is good to know. That part of ASP always struck me as being time consuming and problematic. For example, if we were to use finished compost as a cover, a roof to store finished compost under in our cold, wet climate would be a big added expense. As you eluded to in ua-cam.com/video/lbg_oGNd9FA/v-deo.html, leaving compost exposed in wet climates will invariable turn portions of beautiful compost into an anerobic (stinky) soup.
Due to regulations, we are being asked to better contain our operations. The smaller footprint of ASP is definitely a positive in terms of pad and roof size. However, if memory serves, in another video you mentioned that Whitehorse is turning their ASP piles 3-4 times during composting and 3-4 more times during finishing. That’s a lot of turning. It’s roughly the same number of times we actively turn our windrows now.
Related to turning ASP piles, we know others have run heavy HDPE pipe that they simply yank out of the pile with a tractor and chain. Not having to deal with the perforated pipe helps but still I’m sort of wondering if we’re not better off with our actively turned windrows. Anyway, I’m just posting this in case it helps others.
Thanks for making this channel. There is a lot of really useful information that has helped me think through improving our process :)
Thanks for your comments comparing the turned windrow to the aerated piles. There are two additional important considerations. The first is the expected maturity of the compost that you are making. This will dictate how long you are composting, or how many times you are turning. The second consideration is that an aerated windrow will produce a mature compost faster - particularly with the larger pile sizes.
That makes sense and clears up confusion I had about the number of times to turn. Given a small trial we did of ASP with our bedding pack material, I'm guessing we could get away with a single turn while composting, and maybe once more after - if we wanted to improve the finish. For us, it sort of "begs the question" as to type and stage of finish that gives farmers the best "bang for their buck". In one of Professor David Johnson's presentation, he talked about broadcasting highly fungal compost having a profound impact on soil biology. However, based upon lab results of our small ASP trial, we are not going to get a highly fungal compost from bedding pack material so fungi destroying turning isn't an issue. Thanks again for the videos and the conversation. @@TransformCompost
You are welcome. With compost produced from bedding pack material, my experience is that bacteria are dominant for much of the composting process, especially if its not aerated. Fungi prefer oxygen, so they will flourish when the oxygen demand is lower and we have more oxygen in the compost.
Great results, good looking compost but why people still throw plastic into food waste? Did you try any educational programs? Maybe you can record a video how do you handle plastic in compost? How about microplastic? Are you able to remove it from the compost somehow?
Yes, why do people still put plastic in the food waste?? It is indeed a societal question. In the next video I will discuss how at least some of the plastic can be removed.
In my kitchen the plastic and compost bins are placed next to eachother. Sometimes garbage end up in the wrong bin by mistake. I make my wife and children help me pick up all plastic fram the finished compost every year, so I know that they dont put plastic in the conpost due to laziness.
Since the composting process reduce the volyme alot on non plastic waste, it always seems like it is alot of plasic in the end. But the ratio between plastic / total input of material is really low.
Why truck in loads of soil for gardening from long distances when you can make it yourself. I live in NB and make compose now from grass and leaves which the kitchen was is included.Not throwing my compost material to the curb!
Indeed, not every one has that privilege!
This is nice is the plastic fully conposted or do you try to remove it thank you
Hi Michael, Unfortunately the plastic has to be removed.
@@TransformCompost unfortunate but 👏 great job
@@michaeln.872 Thank you
Removing the plastic might be helpful
Thanks for your comment. Removing the plastic is extremely important. It would be wonderful not to have it in the composting material in the first place, but that appears to be difficult. We then have to figure out how to remove it efficiently!
Hi, thank you for this video. I have a question related to monitoring the compost temperature everyday and how it affects my health.
Can I please get your email id?
Thanks! It would be easier to ask questions on your email.
transformcompost@gmail.com