concrete pad?

we make alot of compost. it was suggested that we should install a concrete pad to compost on top of. The person suggesting it is affraid of subsurface soil/water contamination. i have always belived that the contact between the native soil microbes and the active pile is helpful. opinions? thanks

Are you composting things that can "contaminate" anything?

It is really hard to contaminate soil with organic matter, microbe exchange is a good thing as well, my opinion is, as long as the answer to the above question is no then you can only contaminate a poor soil with health.

we compost tons of stuff others would keep out (meat (raw and cooked), citrus peels, animal bedding, news print), but it is all organic matter. we compost in one area, they were concerned with the long term impact of the area.

Hmmm, ok, is this your land, shared communal area, or public property?

How far is this site from any surface water, creek, stream, river, etc.?

Do you know what depth your groundwater level is compared to this site's grade? Any perk test results that you know of?

These are some factors in the risk of contamination, so if some of these are pushing limits then it "technically" has a higher risk.

we own the land.

the compost area is on the ridge of a hill (10-15 Meters above the surronding pasture), the composting starts at the top of teh hill and gets turned down (~every 2 weeks). it is 75 meters from a drainage ditch (that drains to one of our ponds) and at least 250-300 meters from the river. the soil is heavy clay. during heavy rain times, the pasture at the base of the hill ponds.

we have the area covered, so we dont have much runoff coming off the piles.

the picture attached is old (does not show the roof that has since been built). but it sorta gives you an idea of the lay of the land.

I really think you are fine, and it sounds like you have taken placement seriously, from what I see and you have told us, I just don't see a very high risk of contamination, and the materials are super low risk materials so....the reality of affecting your watershed negatively is nil.

Now with added bacterial and fugal life your soil will breakdown nitrates and nitrites much more readily. I think you will have a positive impact if any at all at the distance from surface water.

I am interested to see what other folks think as well.

Hi Neil,

looks like Chad did a pretty good job of answering your concerns. I just have a couple of questions:
Are those blue things paper egg containers? At first I thought they were styrofoam.
And where do you get that volume of stuff to compost?
Thanks
Thekla

I'm glad to see you've got some chickens helping you with this task! Have you seen Geoff Lawton's video about Vermont Composting?

I see no benefit to a concrete pad or source of contamination from the compost. Free ranging chickens pooping all over, that could be a source of bacteria, but if they have plenty of space I don't think that's a problem either.

It sounds like this person needs some good compost science education.

We collect waste from four resturants. Yes, the blue things are egg cartoons. we try to reuse them, but the soiled ones end up in the compost. we are always in search for more "browns".

We cover the piles with plastic sheets after week 6 (week 6-10). It was originally to keep the chickens from speading the mostly finsihed/finished product all over the place. But also to keep the fresh chicken manure out of teh finished pile. The chickens get no feed, only what they find in the compost.

thanks for the feedback.

Do you ever find funny things in it, like a random fork or spoon?

I know restaurant workers scrape enough plates off to miss one here or there.

Chadwick Holmes wrote:Do you ever find funny things in it, like a random fork or spoon?

I know restaurant workers scrape enough plates off to miss one here or there.

good one! I'm laughing out loud, imagining what else might be coming from the restaurants.

yes, we get spoons, forks, ects. so many, i have started nailing them to the fence as decoration.

the things i hate to see (but are getting better with more education in the kitchens we work with) single serve butter containers and plasticfied sugars packets.

I think we should require a picture of the fence decoration!

Yeah the plastic would get old, but I feel like a would smile at a spoon or fork.....

Compost does better in contact with the soil underneath. Did the person suggesting you the concrete slab ever think how environmentally unfriendly concrete is?