The Magical Alchemy of Compost

What are the elements on which life relies?

The breath of spirit. Sunlight. Air. Water. Earth. Just like fresh water, good arable soil is a limited resource with an astounding, almost unbelievable capacity for the ability to recycle, regenerate, renew...

The thin skin of soil on the earth that supports us, for too long has been treated as inert - as a mere commodity. This thin layer of highly productive life, from the micro to macroscopic, has the ability to break down that which has died, and grow that which is born. Soil is the alpha and omega.

How is this process accomplished?

Through composting.

The amount of life that exists in a handful of healthy soil is mind-boggling:

From the University of Georgia

http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/11111misc/Prokaryotes.html

Consider diversity from this quantitative perspective: genetic studies of soil estimate that 10 grams of unpolluted soil will typically have 8.3 x 10⁶ different species of "bacteria"¹. That's almost 10 million species in a very small handful of soil. Similar studies of bacteria on trees found hundreds of species on the leaves of just one tree, with hundreds of other different species on the leaves of adjacent trees^1a. For comparison, there are only 4500 species of mammals on the entire Earth, perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 species of birds on the entire planet, and 230,000 species of plants globally^2&3. Even the most diverse taxon of higher organisms, the insects, boasts only about a million species worldwide². A measly ten grams of soil has more species of prokaryotes than that!

Consider all of the metabolic activity in and between all of those species. Ingesting, excreting, procreating, forming alliances, fighting wars...

There are a wide range individuals and organizations that are striving to understand the composting process and there are a wide range of technologies out there that try to harness the amazing capacities of compost. Filtrexx is just one of these, but through compost, we accomplish a wide range of solutions to human & environmental problems: erosion, stormwater, contamination of water, soil, & air, and addressing hunger.