In the online article, “Vermicompost, the story of organic gold: A review,” the author dives into the benefits of vermicomposting by explaining the basics of the concept, and then digs deeper into the values and assets of this “organic gold.” The article states how vermicomposting not only gets rid of food waste in landfills, but also creates the soil that we use to grow our plants. For example, the author states, “Vermicompost is a soil additive made up of digested compost. Worm castings are much higher in nutrients and microbial life. Worm castings …show more content…
The EPA, or the Environmental Protection Agency, is a United States government organization that was created to to help our environment and ecosystem thrive and to protect our planet. In the twenty-seven page document, the EPA starts off with statistics about the emission rates of harmful compounds such carbon dioxide, methane, and non-methane organic compounds, such as ethanol. They start narrowing down and start focusing on food waste in landfills later in the report. According to the EPA, “When food waste, yard trimmings, paper and wood are landfilled, anaerobic bacteria degrade the materials, producing methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2)[...] In addition to carbon emissions, some of the carbon in these materials (i.e. food waste, yard trimmings, paper, and wood) is stored in the landfill because these materials are not completely decomposed by anaerobic bacteria”(EPA 2). They state that a suitable solution to this problem, is to compost with red worms, also known as “red wigglers”. The information presented in this source will play a key role in my Change Project research because it provides useful scientific information about carbon and methane emissions due to supplemental food waste left in California’s landfills. This source has also provided tremendous amount of statistics that have helped with the visuals of the Change Project.