Panhandle Plantings
A different type of composting
by Val Ford, Holmes County Master Gardener
Gardening is about caring for our personal environment. Earth Day (celebrated annually, by United Nations decree, at the Vernal Equinox – March 20, 2005) is about caring for our planetary environment. A quote from Terri Swearingen sums in up pretty well: “We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to.” Perhaps we should extend ourselves as gardeners a bit farther?
Which brings me to the “different type of composting,” one we probably don’t think of very often – the deterioration time of various wastes that mankind creates. As gardeners we’re all somewhat familiar with the apple core taking 2 months to compost, a banana peel 2-5 weeks, paper towels 2-4 weeks, and newspaper (used as mulch) taking as long as 6 months. But get a load of these “breakdown” times; this stuff is going to be around for a LONG time!
Glass bottles . . . . . 1 million years
Plastic beverage bottles and disposable diapers . . . . . 450 years
Monofilament fishing lines . . . . . 600 years
Aluminum cans . . . . . 80-200 years
Rubber boot or sneaker sole . . . . . 50-80 years
Foam plastic cups, tin cans and leather . . . . . 50 years
Nylon products . . . . . 30-40- years
Plastic film canisters . . . . . 20-30- years
Wool socks . . . . . 1-5 years
Plywood . . . . . 1-3 years
Waxed milk cartons . . . . . 3 months
Perhaps we can rationalize some of this when we consider that we utilize landfills for the majority of our dumping – and at least we can say that the public park built on top of the landfill of glass bottles isn’t going to settle for a million years. That’s something – right? But what about our marine debris?
In addition to the above information, the U. S. National Park Service, Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota, FL provides us with this information – the Top 10 Marine Debris Items collected world-wide between 1996 and 2000. Cigarette filters were Number One (and take 1-5 years to decompose), followed by food bags and wrappers, caps and lids, plastic beverage bottles, glass beverage bottles, straws, beverage cans, bottle caps, plastic grocery bags and finally cups and utensils.
Did you know that it takes Mother Nature approximately 500 years to create one inch of top soil from natural debris? Remember the old commercial – “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature?” This is one unhappy female when you consider she’s dealing with the mess that we’re creating – which leads in to yet another familiar platitude – “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
Val Ford is a Holmes County Master Gardener. If you have a gardening question or problem, contact your local Extension Office or e-mail Val at FLSnowflake7592@aol.com
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