Smart Gardeners are Composting!

 

Approximately 92% of household food waste still goes directly to landfills, where it anaerobically decomposes, expelling methane – a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide - into
the atmosphere.  Don't be that jerk - rather compost kitchen scraps the right way in your own garden!  It saves not only the environment but also money in your purse...

You can easily improve your flower garden with compost, top dress your lawn, feed your growing veggies, and even mulch your planting beds with compost.  Once you get your compost pile started, you will find that it's an easy way to repurpose kitchen scraps and other organic materials into something that can help your plants thrive. Depending on the time of year, paper for example turns into compost within 2 - 4 weeks, and potato peels within 1 - 2 months.

Common misconceptions of home composting are that it's too complicated, it will smell funny, and it's messy.  This may be true if you compost the wrong way, but composting the right way is actually quite simple.  Just layer organic materials, add a dash of soil and a splash of water, and wait for this mixture to turn into humus

What Goes Into the Compost:

• Fruit and vegetable scraps
• Coffee and tea grounds
• Crushed Eggshells 
• Grass and plant clippings
• Dry leaves and small dry branches
• Finely chopped wood and bark chips
• Shredded newspaper and office paper
• Straw and paper egg cartons
• Small amounts of ash from your fireplace
• Sawdust from untreated wood
• Lint from your dryer
• Hair and nail clips, dog or cat hair
• Spent soil from indoor/outdoor flower pots
• Yard trimmings and grass clippings 

Keeping a container in your kitchen, or even better a large paper grocery bag, and piling your kitchen waste onto some sheets of newspaper, wrap it and place it in this device until filled up.  If you collect it this way it doesn't small.  I practice this for years!  In summer I place the whole paper bag into a hole that I dug in my flower beds,  and then fill and top it with soil.  In winter I collect it in my garage until it is warm enough to dig again.

Start building your compost pile by mixing three parts brown with one part green materials.  If your compost pile looks too wet and smells, (which doesn't happen if you pack kitchen scraps into the paper) then add more brown items. Aerate the pile every ten-day. If you see it looks extremely brown and dry, add green items and water to make it slightly moist.

Add about 4 to 6 inches of compost to your flower beds and into your pots at the beginning of each planting season.  Or even better: compost directly into the soil instead of a (god forbid plastic) composting bin in your garden.

It works like this: decide a spot where you want to plant in a couple of weeks.  Dig a hole at least one foot deep and wide.  Throw a couple of dry branches (ca. 8 inches long) into the hole, then add your collected compost items to fill it half, add a thin layer of garden soil or composted manure (chicken, cow, or sheep), then fill the hole with more compost, and on top again a layer of soil.  Add some water to moisten it and use a thin metal stick to aerate the 'compost bin'.   Should you have lots o squirrels or raccoons in your area, place a flat stone or a flower planter on top for the first two weeks to deter them from digging.  Within three or four weeks you can plant in this compost-improved soil.

Sources:

https://www.bhg.com/gardening/how-to-garden/no-dig-gardening/

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/gardening/advice/a23945/start-composting/

https://www.gardenary.com/blog/the-basics-of-composting-in-your-own-backyard

https://www.bhg.com/gardening/yard/compost/how-to-compost/

https://facty.com/network/how-to/how-to-compost-at-home

https://www.bhg.com/gardening/yard/compost/9-common-composting-mistakes-you-may-be-making/

https://gardensbybarby.ca/

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The Underestimated Danger: Ship exhaust gases

Thick air cannot only be found in cities but also where we would not expect it at all: on rivers and seas.  An extremely harmful mixture of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and soot oozes from the chimneys of cruise ships and container ships.  This not only pollutes the air on coasts but also far inland.  
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The Helmholtz Centre regularly measure the pollution levels on the banks of the Elbe in Hamburg.  Every passing ship brings the sensitive instruments of the measuring station to the limit.  And this despite the fact that since 2015 ships on their way to the port of Hamburg have only been allowed to burn comparatively clean fuel.  It may contain a maximum of 0.1% sulphur.  Sounds clean, but it is still 100 times more than in normal car diesel.

The ocean liners then become dirt slingshots on the high seas. Because there they are allowed to burn the cheapest and most toxic fuel there.  The viscous mass contains high levels of sulphur, ash and heavy metals.  When it burns, all of this ends up in our atmosphere.
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Ship exhaust fumes do not only travel far inland - up to 500 kilometres inland.  They become even more dangerous there, as nitrogen oxides from ships' diesel engines react with air pollutants from agriculture and together they cause the formation of fine dust.

Catalysts or other propulsion technology, such as liquid gas, could help.

These measures could contribute significantly to the reduction of nitrogen oxides.

Cruise Passengers Also Travel Dangerously
Incidentally, the exhaust gases are a huge burden not only for the people living nearby but also for the people on the ships themselves.  A camera team took air samples on a cruise ship and had the quality measured.  The frightening result: the pollution with soot and other fine dust particles was four to ten times higher there than on a busy city crossing!

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Alternative LNG 

The ferry "MS Helgoland", for example, uses such liquid gas.  It is the first German seagoing vessel newbuilding ever to be powered by liquefied petroleum gas or LNG.  The natural gas, which is liquefied by extreme cooling, is slowly heated before combustion and then injected directly into the propulsion engines.  Compared to conventional fuels, LNG propulsion reduces nitrogen oxide emissions by around 80 %, and particulate matter emissions are virtually zero.  Once a week the ferry has to bunker fuel.  The comparatively small amount of frozen gas can still be delivered by tanker.  However, a comprehensive infrastructure for refuelling large container or cruise ships would first have to be established.

How to Save the Environment: Green the Cities

Cities and dramatic climate change: Over 50,000 people died in 2003 throughout Europe. Climate change has reached the cities. For the majority of the population, life becomes more exhausting, more difficult, and sometimes even dangerous.

Take, for example, the city of Stuttgart, Germany, which is particularly affected by climate change.  The heat builds up between the grey high gorges.  The difference in temperature between the surrounding area and the city center can be up to 10 degrees.  A calculation by the German Weather Service for downtown Stuttgart shows an increase on summer days, that is, days with a maximum temperature of more than 25 degrees. Whereas in 2015 there were 44 summer days per year, by 2050 there will be over 80-degrees celsius summer days per year. 

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Cities and Municipalities Can Adapt to the Consequences of Climate Change:

It is particularly important to plan exactly how enough fresh air can get into the city.  For cities, such as Stuttgart, Frankfurt, or New York City, it is important, if not the most important, that they have an air pathway. Especially in the height of summer, it brings fresh, cool air into the city. So-called cold-air islands also form over open areas such as meadows and fields in the surrounding countryside, thus bringing a cooling wind towards the city center.

In order not to endanger this air circulation, the aim of the Frankfurt environmental authority is to concentrate the development on the inner city area and to prevent it from spreading into the cooling green belt.  And: new apartment blocks should leave gaps so as not to obstruct ventilation.  As was for example the case with the construction of Frankfurt's Hafencity in Germany.  But that alone is not enough.

More Green Into the City Center 

The inner cities will still heat up considerably.  In summer it can get unbearably hot here.  A complete greening of the square could provide cooling: with additional trees, overgrown facades, and plants on roofs.  According to calculations by scientists, this could lead to a cooling of 6 to 8 degrees on hot days.
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A really clean environment - there are still a lot of things in disorder. But it is amazing how much we can do for an intact environment.  We all just have to overcome our complacency sometimes.

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Idling is for Dummies

The driver of this car idled for half an hour

On a road trip through British Columbia, Canada, on a sunny day in April, I had to wait at a construction site. I shut down the engine, not only because it looked like cars had to wait quite a while, but also there was a sign to do so.

I opened the car windows to give my dog and me some fresh air. A moment later I realized that the driver in front of me hadn't turned off his engine. I walked to him and friendly explained that I had opened my car's windows to give my dog some fresh air. And if he could please shut down his engine. His answer: "No, I will not!" I reminded him that it is also not helpful for the environment, as well as for his car's engine. No way that he obliged...

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Why Do Drivers Idle?

Why are they not better take care of their cars, the environment, or of their purse?  It is beyond me.  And it gets worse: since everyone has a smartphone, drivers sit in their car for twenty minutes on the phone while their engine is running...

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Killing Your Car's Engine?
A cold start means an extreme load for the engine, it leads to faster wear, because for example, the still viscous oil does not reach all lubrication points. 
On top of that, there is a higher emission of exhaust gases, because the fuel consumption is many times higher when the engine is cold.  Projected in this way, a gasoline engine would consume 25 to 30 liters per 100 kilometers.

My advice to drivers! Turn off your idling engines!

Reducing vehicle idling will cut pollution and save you money.

Read more here:

https://www.edf.org/attention-drivers-turn-your-idling-engines

https://www.lanesinsurance.com/idling-vehicles-are-bad-for-a-lot-of-reasons/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/how-big-a-problem-is-idling-1.5351917