Subject: Re: Is this compost organic anyway?
From: "Bill Robinson" <roseguy@flash.net>
Organization: Greve Technologies
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 1997 13:32:51 -0700
Message-ID: <MOD$970906.11693@rec.gardens.ecosystems>
dhs wrote,
snip
> The farmer next door runs a compost business: gardeners and
> landscapers bring their garden clippings and he puts them into a
> big pile (several stories high). . . .
snip
>After a while, this becomes compost, very dark. I looked at it, and
> it seems fine (but what do I know?). He says that this stuff is organic
> (not certified). But when lanscapers bring the refuse from my suburbs
> where everybody uses pesticides, why should the compost become
> then "organic"?
We used environmental friendleness as our basis for defining "organic"
in both the Charter and the FAQ. In that pesticide residues are subject to
breakdown in the composting process, I guess one could say that once
the pesticide residues are broken down that the composted material
becomes "organic" but that seems a stretch.
The breakdown of the pesticide residues will depend, in part, on how well
the farmer composts his material and, in part, on the kinds of residues
present on the starting material. His final product is probably O.K. but it
is not a certainty. That's one of the big reason to justify the time and
energy
that goes into making your own compost using materials from your own
garden.
Bill