threats to agricultural production.

Human health will be

jeopardized by all of these changes.”2

What is causing Global Climate Change?

The primary engine that drives the Earth’s climate is the sun.
USCC Factsheet A certain percentage of the solar energy that reaches our
planet is trapped in the atmosphere by a process known as the
Greenhouse Gases and “greenhouse effect,” first described by Joseph Fourier back in
18293. The primary gas responsible for this effect is carbon
the Role of Composting: dioxide, CO24. While CO2 levels in the atmosphere have
changed over the course of Earth’s history, it has become clear
that human activities since the industrial revolution has caused
A Primer for Compost a dramatic jump in the CO2 levels, as we have developed a
fossil-fuel based economy. That increase in CO2 means that a
Producers1 greater fraction of the sun’s energy is trapped rather than
escaping each day, driving overall temperatures up.

What are greenhouse gases?

The biggest benefit of composting with Greenhouse gases (GHG) are gases in the atmosphere that act
to trap heat near the Earth’s surface. While these gases and
respect to Global Climate Change comes this effect are naturally occurring, human activities have
from avoiding the production of methane. caused an increase in the levels of these gases and thus an
increase in their effect. Because of the lag time between
emission and effect (up to 100 years) it is too late to
Good composting practices minimize completely prevent some climate change, but there is much
greenhouse gas emissions. that can be done to reduce emissions and thus reduce the rate
and extent of the change, giving us more time to prepare and
The use of compost provides numerous adapt to those changes.
greenhouse gas benefits, both directly
through carbon sequestration and Other gases
Nitrous Oxide OtherPFCs,
(HFCs, gases
indirectly through improved soil health, Nitrous
6% Oxide (HFCs, PFCs,
and SF)
Methane 6% and
2% SF)
reduced soil loss, increased water Methane
7% 2%
7%
infiltration and storage, and reduction in
other inputs.

Carbon
Carbon
Dioxide
Anyone who as ever tended a compost pile, from a balcony Dioxide
worm bin to 1000 ton per day facility, is sure that what they US GHG Emissions, 2006 85%
US GHG Emissions, 2006 85%
are doing is GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. However, the
increased focus on Global Warming and Climate Change is
challenging this assumption and forcing composters to look to
new answers to new questions. The goal of this factsheet is to
provide composters with some basic definitions relating to Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main GHG. In 2005, the US
Global Climate Change, help them understand composting’s released 6,090 Tg (Teragrams, or trillions of grams) of CO2,
which accounted for 85% of all US GHG emissions.5 The
role, and offer some direction for additional resources. burning of fossils fuels for energy and transportation was
responsible for 95% of the CO2 emitted. Since other gases,
such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), are more
What is Global Climate Change ? effective at trapping heat than CO2, the amounts and effects of
Global Climate Change is the result of increased average                                                             
temperature of the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, with
profound consequences for humanity and the world as a whole. 2
From “Climate Change 101: Understanding and Responding to Global
Some of these consequences include rising sea level Climate Change”, published by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change,
endangering coastal populations, more extreme weather, and www.pewclimate.org.
3
Greenhouse effect. (2008, October 22). New World Encyclopedia..
4
                                                             Technically, water vapor has a bigger impact than CO2, but since it is not
anthropogenic (of human origin) it is not regulated or considered a GHG by
the International Panel on Climate Change
1 5
Based on the article “Composting and Greenhouse Gas Emissions” by Sally Statistics on GHG emissions for the US are drawn from the USEPA website on
Brown and Scott Subler, BioCycle, March, 2007, Vol. 48, No. 3, page 37-8. climate change, http://epa.gov/climatechange/index.html
other gases are computed in terms of CO2 equivalents (Table How does composting effect Global Climate
1). In 2005, 539 Tg of CO2 equivalents were released as CH4,
and 469 as N2O. Change?
To understand what effect composting has, we have to break
the composting system into three components: the feedstocks,
Table 1. Global warming equivalencies of primary GHGs the composting process, and how the use compost product is
used. Composting will have an impact based on what might
Global have happened to the feedstocks if they were not composted,
Warming how the composting operation is run, and what happens to the
Potential Atmospheric compost. Positive impacts include emissions avoidance and
Gas (GWP) a Lifetime carbon sequestration. Negative impacts result from emissions
Carbon Dioxide 1 50-200 from the diesel powered processing equipment used to process
feedstocks. The net effect is determined by adding up the
Methane 21 12±3 benefits and detriments of each component.
Nitrous Oxide 310 120
a
GWP of CH4 and N2O were changed to 23 and 296 respectively in the
Third Assessment done by the IPCC. The equivalencies from the
Part 1: Feedstocks
second assessment, shown above, are still used by the EPA so that
updated inventories can be compared with former inventories and If material that would otherwise end up producing methane or
trends can be tracked. nitrous oxide is composted instead, this results in avoided
emissions. Some common situations where this might apply
include food wastes that are going to landfills and manures
How are greenhouse gases changing? that get stored in uncovered lagoons. For example, every
metric dry ton of food that goes to a landfill may generate .25
In order to tell if policies aimed at curbing Global Climate metric tons of methane in the first 120 days. Thus
Change are having an effect, we need to have an inventory of composting this food waste reduces emissions by the
GHGs. An inventory attempts to total and track the amount of equivalent of up to 6 metric tons of CO2. By the same token, if
GHGs that are released into the atmosphere each year and how grass clippings that were going
much carbon is removed. Inventories can be done by to a composter were redirected
countries, states, industries and even individuals. The United to a landfill, that would result The US sent 25
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in increased methane
of which the United States is a member, commits the country million tons of food
emissions at the landfill (up to
to performing an annual inventory of GHG sources and sinks. about 2 tons of CO2 equivalents waste to landfills in
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for every ton of grass, 2005. The GHG
provides the protocols by which the inventory is done. In doing depending on how the landfill
the inventory, only anthropogenic (manmade) emissions are is managed). impact of composting
counted as “sources”. Likewise, since carbon is naturally this mass would be
constantly being taken out of the atmosphere through Transportation costs also have
photosynthesis, that does not count as removal. Only
the equivalent of
to be taken into account. If the
processes that store carbon for longer periods of time, called composting facility is closer removing 7.8 million
sequestration, are counted as “sinks”. The US has provided than the landfill (as is often the passenger cars from
GHG inventories for the years 1990 through 2007, reporting case, as landfills become more
sources and sinks by gas, by industry and by sector. regional and take trash from the road.
further afield), then less energy
will be used in transporting the waste, another benefit. On the
How do organic discards contribute to other hand, if the food collection required more vehicle trips
greenhouse gases? (or vehicle miles or use of less efficient vehicles) than would
have been otherwise, then that would result in increased
By definition, all organic discards contain carbon. When they emissions, reducing the total avoidance. However, since
decompose naturally under aerobic conditions the CO2 they methane is so much more damaging than CO2, the vehicle
give off is part of the natural short-term carbon cycle6. Since “costs” are usually far outweighed by the benefits of methane
this is part of the natural flux of CO2 it is not considered in reduction. For example, a long haul truck can carry about 30
GHG computations. However, when those organic discards are wet tons of material. At 20% solids, that is 6 dry tons of food
placed in an anaerobic environment the decomposers will waste. For a 200 mile round trip the truck will emit 327 kg of
convert and release the carbon as methane and other volatile CO2. The total CO2 equivalent of methane avoided by
organic compounds which can contribute to global climate composting is 36 MG or 36,000 kg. That truck would have to
change. Organic discards that are high in nitrogen, such as drive back and forth from LA to New York City seven times to
food scraps, manures and grass clippings, under wet and before the emissions outweighed the avoidance!
oxygen-limited conditions, can also produce N2O during
decomposition, roughly 300 times worse than carbon dioxide.
Part 2: Composting Process
The EPA recognizes that well-run composters emit little
methane and N2O from the biological process of composting,
                                                             so have little impact in GHG. Of course, the compost process
6
uses diesel fuelsto run grinders, turners, front-end loaders and
Carbon is constantly removed from the atmosphere by plant photosynthesis,
moved among organisms through the foodweb and released by via the like. The burning of this fuel creates GHG emissions, as
decomposition. does electricity used to operate blowers, pumps, etc. If the
energy comes from bio-based fuels, like biodiesel or methane- (see USCC factsheet Keep Organics Out of Landfills for
fired generators, or other renewable energy sources, those more details).
emissions would be reduced from a GHG accounting
perspective (because the carbon emitted is coming from the The composting process has the potential to produces
short term carbon cycle and replacing the carbon from fossil some GHG, though those can be minimized. Good
fuels, which is coming out of long term storage). composting practices that balance the carbon:nitrogen
ratio and provide adequate aeration and moisture will
This is not to say the composting itself can’t have GHG minimize GHG emissions.
emissions. Both methane and nitrous oxide have been
observed coming from compost piles (Hao, 2001, Sommer and The end use of the compost provides some GHG benefits,
Moller, 2000, Lopez-Real and Baptista, 1996). Methane both directly through sequestration and indirectly through
forms under anaerobic conditions, often found at the bottom of improved soil health, reduced soil loss, increased water
piles. In the real world this probably happens frequently, but infiltration and storage, and reduction of other inputs.
the methane is then oxidized as it reaches more aerobic
portions of the pile and before leaving the pile. N2O formation The actual benefits of a specific facility or system will have to
is less well understood, occurring closer to the surface where be determined on a case-by-case basis. For more info on
oxygen is limited but not absent and where nitrogen is in carbon credits for composters, see USCC factsheet Composting
excess. The CO2 released during composting is considered and Carbon Credits.
biogenic, not anthropogenic, so is not considered in
greenhouse gas calculations. Good composting practices that
balance the carbon:nitrogen ratio and provide adequate References:
aeration and moisture will minimize GHG emissions.
Brown, S and Subler, S, 2007, Composting and Greenhouse
Gas Emissions, BioCycle, Vol. 48, No. 3, page 37-8.
Part 3: Compost Use Compost Science & Utilization. Vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 71-82.
Compost that is incorporated into the soil will continue to Hao X, Chang C, Larney FJ and Travis GR. 2001. Greenhouse
breakdown. Depending on the soil management practices, gas emissions during cattle feedlot manure composting.
temperature, rainfall and feedstocks; a portion of that Journal of Environmental Quality 30: 376-386
composted organic matter may become part of the soil’s long Lopez-Real, J; Baptista, M 1996 Preliminary comparative
term carbon pool (sequestration). study of three manure composting systems and their
influence on process parameters and methane emissions
In addition, there are a number of indirect effects, such as,
increased soil moisture holding capacity and a reduction in the New World Encyclopedia contributors, "Greenhouse effect,"
need for fertilizers, herbicide or fungicide. This could result in New World Encyclopedia,
less irrigation, which would mean less energy used and http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Greenhouse_ef
avoidance of associated GHGs. The same is true when fect?oldid=836468 (accessed December 3, 2008).
compost use results in reduced fertilizer, herbicide or fungicide Pew Center on Global Climate Change, 2006, Climate Change
use. 101: Understanding and Responding to Global Climate
Change, Arlington, VA
In a detailed life cycle analysis of windrow composting in
Australia, the emissions from the production of compost and Sharma, G and Campbell, A., 2003, Life Cycle Inventory and
composted mulch were more than outweighed by the benefits Life Cycle Assessment for Windrow Composting Systems,
of the use of composted products. The emissions came from Recycled Organics Unit, University of New South Wales,
Sydney, Australia
the use of fuel, water and electricity in compost production,
transport and application. The benefits came from carbon Sommer, S.G. and Moller, H.B. (2000) Emission of
sequestration and the reduction in fertilizers, electricity, water greenhouse gases during composting of deep litter from
and herbicides (and thereby reducing the emissions associated pig production - effect of straw content. J. Agric. Sci.,
with the production and use of these items). The net benefit Camb., 134: 327-335
persisted even if the composted products were transported over
400 miles to the application site and the trucks returned
Copyright © 2008 The United States Composting Council
empty (Sharma and Campbell, 2003).7

Conclusion US Composting Council

CO$-'
The impact of composting on climate change is the sum of the 11130 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 350
Reston, VA 20191
three components of the compost system: the feedstocks, the phone: 301-897-2715
process, and the end use. fax: 301-530-5072
email: uscc@compostingcouncil.org
The biggest benefit for most composting projects comes About the USCC: The United States Composting Council (USCC) is a national
from emission avoidance; primarily from keeping methane- not-for-profit organization dedicated to the development, expansion and
promotion of the composting industry. For more information visit
generating organics out of landfills or lagoons. Landfills www.compostingcouncil.org
with methane capture systems result in less GHG benefits. Disclaimer: Neither the USCC, nor any of its employees, contractors,
subcontractors or their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or
assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or any
third party's use or the results of such use of any information, equipment,
7
product, or process discussed herein. Reference to any specific commercial
The full report is available from the Recycled Organics Unit website, product, process, or service by trade name, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not
www.recycledorganics.com necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement or recommendation by the USCC.