Golf Course Food Wastes, An Excellent Opportunity for Environmental Leadership

The increasing amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere is generally blamed for global climate change. Most often, car emissions are held up as the example polluter of CO2. But after a brief research session, I found some interesting statistics that I'd like to share with you.

Autos: An average automobile releases 20 pounds of CO2 per gallon. Some research claims that the average car produces 6 tons of CO2 per year.

Airplanes: A commercial airliner flying non stop from Boston to Wichita releases approximately 1400 pounds of CO2. It's 1645 miles from Boston to Wichita, so that's just a little less than 1 pound of  CO2per mile

Cows: An adult cow releases on average between 100 kg of methane per year. That equates to 2000 kg of CO2 per year, or 2 tons of CO2.

Coal Fired Power Plant: One ton of coal burned in the average power plant releases approximately 2.5 tons of CO2.

Landfilled Food Wastes: One ton of landfilled food wastes releases the equivalent of 6000 tons of CO2

WHAT?  Yes it's true... Pound for pound, landfilled food wastes are the worst source for greenhouse gases of all.

Studies by Arizona State University have shown that one dry ton of food wastes that decay anaerobically in landfill releases approximately 300 cubic meters of methane gas into the atmosphere. Methane gas is recognized by USEPA as being 20 times more harmful to the atmosphere than CO2. 300 cubic meters of methane multiplied by 20 = 6000 cubic meters of CO2.

Diverting food waste from landfill must be elevated to the highest priority if the harmful effects of global warming are to be slowed.

Not everybody drives a car or flies an airplane. Coal power plants? who even knows where they are? But everybody (apologies to those who lack enough food to be included) eats everyday and throws their wasted food or scraps into the trash can. That is why Green Golfer Foundation feels so strongly that golf courses should spread the word and lead by example by composting food wastes. Simply put, landfilled food wastes are the major source of greenhouse pollutants, period.

Food waste composting is regulated in most states, so there are, most likely, some regulations to learn and to follow, usually based upon the amount of wastes being composted, where the wastes come from and where they're going to be used. At Dairy Creek GC, we use vessel composters that are certified for food waste composting, and we also use worm bins to digest food wastes into vermicompost.

A few communities have a municipal composting operation that accepts food wastes, so it is possible to divert food wastes from the landfill in that manner. Our community does not have such a facility, so we do our own composting. We want the compost, and the vermicompost, anyway, because we use it to make compost tea with which we reduce our fertilizer and pesticide use and costs.

Oh,  by the way, in case you were counting on golf course trees to absorb all the CO2 produced on site...A single adult tree absorbs approximately 48 pounds of CO2 per year. Now, calculate your food waste and then figure out how many trees you need to plant in the rough.