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by tantalor 1881 days ago
Poorly explained. Why does it matter where this stuff decomposes? Compost heaps also emit CO2, but faster, so why are they better?
3 comments

If you read more carefully this is mostly explained.

Decay in landfills is anaerobic and produces methane, which has a higher impact on warming than CO2.

Also, composting has a bunch of other no-brainer benefits. Compost reduces demand for fertilizer, can substantially reduce the waste steam, and improves soil quality.

> If you read more carefully this is mostly explained. > Decay in landfills is anaerobic and produces methane, which has a higher impact on warming than CO2.

It's not clear to me where you're getting that from. The page neither mentions the word anaerobic nor say that composting doesn't also release the exact same gasses just somewhere else. At best it leans on the reader feeling an emotional difference between the words "decompose" and "decay".

Landfills generally burn off their methane, which turns it into carbon dioxide.

So, yes, they’re roughly equivalent. And things decay faster as compost, so you’d actually be increasing climate change by composting all organic waste.

Methane is mostly a problem when it can’t be captured and burned (ex: cow farts, a serious problem in preventing climate change).

Note that I still support composting. I just don’t think it can be argued from a climate change perspective.

Some landfills now harvest methane and inject it back into the natural gas grid. If this were done more widely, landfills could actually help solve climate change by reducing demand for natural gas.
Composte decomposing in a landfill does nobody any good. I compost my scraps along with lawn clippings and leaves in my yard so that I can use it in my little garden. I splurged and got a tumbler for composting rather than just piles in the yard. Each spring, I use the compost through out my garden beds/pots. I had enough left over to fill a couple of ceramic pots. One of those pots had tomato seeds that sprouted for me free of charge. Bonus!
I agree completely, but are those first two words useful?