Anaerobic vs Aerobic, What the Funk are you Talking About?

It isn’t infrequent that I use these two terms in my posts. Since I’m fairly certain you have been itching to have it explained, I’m going to grant you your first of three wishes right now! So exciting. An aerobic environment is one that has air. Compost needs air in order to rot. If your compost doesn’t get any air, it doesn’t rot.  This is why tumbler composters are so effective. You turn the crank, the organic material tumbles around and the bacteria go nuts and celebrates with a crazy garbage buffet. If you don’t have a compost tumbler, you will have to aerate your pile somehow. They have tools you can buy to accomplish this task or you can turn it with a shovel or stab at it with a stick. Since Mama ain’t got time fo dat, we invested in a lovely compost tumbler for all of our waste rotting needs. An environment that is anaerobic is one that lacks air.  Canning is a good example of this.  Through the canning process you are removing the air from the mason jar, thus preserving whatever food you are canning. Since landfills are an anaerobic environment, there is little to no decomposition. Things that would have otherwise been reduced to valuable soil conditioner are eerily preserved in a tomb of trash.  There is still a process of degradation though and it produces an extremely toxic and unstable gas known as methane. Landfills of yesteryear have had fires and explosions from methane gas. Today’s landfills have extensive systems of pipes in order to harness this gas and it is converted to energy.  A landfill can produce methane gas for 30 years after it is capped and then it (the landfill) will sit there forever. A literal tomb of trash and squandered valuable resources. I’ll talk more about landfills in another post (wish number 2 granted!) I hope you can contain your excitement until then.