Educating Myself on Composting

     As we continue work on our final project of the semester, I've found myself wondering what it is we will actually accomplish by organizing a school compost. My family and I keep our own compost bin outside in our yard, but I've never really looked into the benefits of doing so. Today, I wanted to do some extra research and have a look at some composting facts and statistics. I already knew that composting turned food waste into something reusable, but I wanted to see some actual numbers. My first source was the Environmental Protection Agency's web page on reducing the impact of wasted food, and I was able to see these numbers pretty quickly. Apparently, Americans composted 2.6 million tons of food in 2018. After scrolling a little further, I was able to see some of the benefits of composting. Among other things, composting can reduce methane emissions, help aid reforestation, wetlands restoration, and habitat revitalization efforts, as well as help fix contaminated soil and polluted air and water. Compost can also provide carbon sequestration, which was a term new to me, so I looked it up. For the sake of anyone reading who doesn't know, carbon sequestration is the term used to describe the process in which carbon dioxide is taken from the atmosphere and stored away, and it is regarded as a method to reduce global warming. According to a web page from UCLA, there has been little research on how well compost carries out this process, but if it bears fruitful results it could provide not only environmental benefits, but financial benefits as well. Farmers would not be the only ones gaining financial benefits from composting. At the bottom of the EPA's webpage, they have a list of businesses and organizations that saved a lot of money from composting, ranging from 25 to 100 thousand dollars from 2005 to 2011. Composting has other economic benefits as well, and according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, composting creates jobs. Manufacturing compost "employs 2x more than landfills and 4x more than incinerators." This difference increases even more when you include use of this compost for green infrastructure. In conclusion, composting has benefits on all sides, from reducing food waste and greenhouse gas to creating jobs and saving money, there's really something in it for everyone.

Works cited:

“Reducing the Impact of Wasted Food by Feeding the Soil and Composting.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 14 Apr. 2021, www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/reducing-impact-wasted-food-feeding-soil-and-composting#:~:text=Composting%20is%20the%20fifth%20tier%20of%20EPA's%20Food%20Recovery%20Hierarchy.&text=EPA%20estimates%20that%20in%202018,25%20million%20tons%20through%20composting.

Platt, Brenda. “Infographic: Compost Impacts More Than You Think.” Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 2 Apr. 2019, ilsr.org/compost-impacts-infographic/.

Constant Oppression and Desensitization

    Recently, I heard about Nancy Pelosi's comment thanking George Floyd for "sacrificing your life for justice," and the controversy this comment stirred up. I thought about it, and I feel like a comment like that could only have been made in this exact scenario. To say "thank you [victims of school shootings] for sacrificing your lives" after a school shooter is apprehended, or saying something similar to rape victims after a rapist is apprehended, this to me feels unthinkable. What kind of person thanks someone for getting murdered, period, but also getting murdered and falling victim to a problem that has been going on since the founding of the country. George Floyd didn't sacrifice his life for anything. First of all, and this should have been obvious, especially to an elected official representing the people, but his death wasn't a sacrifice, because sacrifice denotes choice. Murder victims like George Floyd were not given a choice. And as much as I'm sorry to say it, there is no "for the greater good" or "justice" in this scenario. It was one cop. One cop out of how many? I'd say thousands but that honestly feels like a lowball, considering every day a person of color is murdered. Every time I scroll through instagram I see another picture of a dead child. Sometimes multiple killings a day. I can't begin to imagine how many more aren't documented. I remember seeing a story talking about a murder right outside of the courthouse Chauvin was being tried in. People who think this verdict sent a message are delusional. Now, I know what it meant to people. My mother came into my room on the day of and told me about how she had to take a break from her work and just cried. I don't underestimate the power of what just happened. But when the killings don't stop, and the cops who perpetrate these crimes continue to walk free, to me it feels like nothing's changed. Now I pray that this is a start to something bigger, but it's hard to imagine it is. What the Chauvin verdict felt like was the system giving our starving community a morsel of rotten food and acting like it was a banquet. The fact that George Floyd was murdered almost a year ago, and his murderer walked free until last week is outrageous, and the fact that the bar is so abysmally low that this event was cause for celebration is extremely disheartening. 

My Thoughts on 5th & Hill

    Ms. Lennhoff's presentation the other day was the first I had heard about this issue, and even hearing the words "toxic waste site" about a place so close to home was insane. I looked up the location on google maps, and the thought of something that dangerous being so close to home is scary, but the idea of living across the street from it is much, much worse. 

Looking at this image, I grew concerned for the people living so close to this health hazard, I think seeing how close it really is to people left more of an impact on me than just hearing about it. Thinking about how the people and families living in those homes must have suffered is awful, and as someone who has seen a family member go through (and thankfully beat) cancer, I hate the thought of people having to go through the same experience as a result of the laziness and greed of someone else. It really is a shame nowadays that people are willing to lie and sacrifice other humans lives to save money, and as we have said in class, if this ordeal had occurred in a different, more wealthy neighborhood, the fight to clean the contaminants up would not still be happening, nor would it have needed to happen at all in my opinion. To me, this situation is another example of how little people care about the lives of colored and lower class people. I don't know too many other examples of this, but regarding institutionalized racism in general, there are injustices being carried out every single day without being stopped. Disparities in college admissions and in the workplace, over-policing in low-income black neighborhoods, underfunded education, and more. People's lives are being lost in the aftermath of these things, and they are not being dealt with nearly as quickly as they should be. This company knowingly subjected people to illnesses and death due to their missteps, and tried their hardest to avoid dealing with the situation at all. I'm sure there are similar problems occurring across America and the rest of the world, but I am deeply saddened and disappointed that something like this could be happening a mere 30 minutes away.

My Hopes for the Environmental Justice Movement

I think there are a lot of things wrong with how America has handled the climate crisis. I have to admit, I'm not the type to really stay informed on the issue, which is part of the reason I took this class. The only things I really knew about were wildfires, I suppose the ozone, and the general idea of lots of pollution and carbon emissions. As for what I want to be done about these things, I would say for starters I would want the population to try to be aware of how they affect the environment as individuals. This could be local, national, or global, but I understand that the spread of these ideas isn't easy. Fining people for littering and raising gas prices might be an inconvenience to some, and I recognize that some people might depend on there car to make a living, in which case that kind of change could be problematic. Maybe this is naive of me, but if the government could help fund projects to acquire more environmentally friendly sources of fuel, that would be a great way to solve any potential problem arising from lower gas availability.While I'm on the topic of the government, I'd also want the the Green New deal to be approved. I only recently learned what that is, but the sooner we can get to a neutral carbon footprint the better. Something I saw recently on instagram was the billboard with the countdown to basically irreversible environmental damage. The clock was set to just over 7 years remaining. I'm not sure what level of damage they mean, but getting to neutral in 5 years doesn't seem fast enough if there are only 7 left. I also recently learned about the connections between the BLM movement and the Climate Change movement. Their argument about solving the race issues first and the planet issues second was interesting, but in my opinion making sure the world doesn't end is probably a top priority when making sure the people on it are treated fairly. Of course in an ideal world, activists fighting for many causes could team up and push for change in all areas together.