Food waste: the number one environmental pollutant at most golf courses

The number one environmental pollutant at most golf courses is not the chemicals that they use on their turf and greens. The number one environmental problem comes straight out of the restaurant or snack bar. The problem is food waste.

A study by the University of Arizona found that one ton of food waste, when landfilled, releases 300 cubic yards of methane into the atmosphere. Methane gas, according to the USEPA, is 20 times more damaging to the atmosphere than is carbon dioxide. That means that each ton of landfilled food wastes releases 300x20=6000 cubic yards of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere. That is a stagering reality. The question is, how much food waste does your course produce in a year's time?

Landfilled food wastes decay anaerobically, that's when they produce methane. But composted food wastes decay aerobically, a process that DOES NOT produce methane nor carbon dioxide.

So much of the literature makes a big deal of the toxic chemicals used on golf courses, and the potential that they may run off or somehow harm the adjacent environment. But food waste is never mentioned. It's time that changed.

It's so simple to compost food wastes. Just add the food scraps to an active green waste compost pile. If maintained properly, it won't stink and it won't attract vermin. Most golf courses are paying good money to purchase compost for divit repairs etc, when they could make their own so easily and cheaply. If composting is not practical or convenient, another good way to divert food scraps from the landfill is vermiculture...worm bins. At our course, we do composting and worm binning. The worms eat their weight every day, and they double in population every 90 days. It doesn't take much investment or time to grow a pretty significant herd of worms.

Take the compost and make compost tea. Compost tea is 1000 times more beneficial to turf maintenance than is dry compost. To make compost tea, get a vessel, a mesh bag, some compost, an air compressor and a little kelp extract (to feed the multiplying microbes) and there you go.

Let's get a grip on the number one environmental pollutant on our golf courses. After we do that, we can discuss chemicals.