What You Need to Know About Organic Waste

What It Is

Organic waste, or biodegradable waste, is a natural refuse type that comes from plants or animals. It comes in manifold forms – biodegradable plastics, food waste, green waste, paper waste, manure, human waste, sewage, and slaughterhouse waste.

Why Landfills Don’t Work

Most organic products sound innocuous enough – they are natural, after all. But there’s actually serious harm associated with its disposal in landfills. Due to the lack of oxygen, organic waste undergoes the process of anaerobic decomposition when it’s buried in a landfill. This generates methane, which is then released into our atmosphere. It almost defies logic to imagine that the pairing of organic waste and a flawed disposal solution could generate a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, but it can.

Organic Waste Recycling

Thankfully, a landfill doesn’t have to be the end of the road for organic materials. For a disposal solution that is advantageous and eco-friendly (rather than wasteful and damaging), we can borrow one of nature’s simplest solutions: composting.

With time, all organic refuse will decompose. Composting is the controlled, accelerated process of recycling those decomposed organic materials into a nutrient-rich soil. Small amounts of organic waste can be composted in your backward. It has been estimated that you could remove as much as 500 lbs of organic material from your home each year.

On a larger scale, businesses also have the option of sending their organic waste to special facilities, where it will be recycled into usable resources. If your business generates this waste type and would benefit from a more efficient management program, call Hazardous Waste Experts today at 800-936-2311.