2020 International Compost Awareness Week (3-9 May)
Each year for the past 25 years, the first full week in May, has been identified to provide the largest and most comprehensive education initiative of the compost industry. It is known as the International Compost Awareness Week. It was started in Canada in 1995. The theme for 2020 is Soil Loves Compost.
While the theme suggests that soil exhibits emotions, the artistic intent is valid because the benefits of adding compost, especially food-based compost, to soil have been clearly documented. Food-based compost improves or restores soil vitality by
providing micro- and macro-nutrients, which are released slowly, that have been used by plants or leached away
providing organic matter needed by micro- and macro-organisms to sustain a healthy soil food web
providing microbes whose population may have been reduced or eliminated
providing for enhanced water-holding capacity
providing for reduced compaction
Much like the phrase Earth Day Every Day has been adopted to emphasize the point that the environmentally responsible human
actions that are celebrated on Earth Day really must be embraced every day and not just on one day out of the year, so too, should the International Compost Awareness Week adopt the phrase International Compost Awareness Week Every Week because degradation of soils globally will be an important environmental problem of the 21st century because of the profound effect it has on our ability to produce enough food to feed our growing population and other adverse environmental consequences of unhealthy soil that generally contribute to a reduced quality of life. Thomas Jefferson believed, “…civilization itself rests upon the soil.” Franklin D. Roosevelt opined, “The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” Perhaps this is why a poster that once was displayed in the United States Capitol Building proclaimed, “Composting…is one of the most Earth friendly things you can do.”
