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| Hello! I am having a difficult time locating any information about what makes compost organic. when you compost with gmo crops and commercial veggies as food scraps does that mean that the compost that comes from those scrapes can never be organic? Do the gmo seeds from the veggies stick around and contaminate the whole pile? And do the pesticides used to grow the commercial crops stick around in the pile as well? So to have "organic compost" (compost free of pesticides and gmo's) are only organic food scraps allowed? |
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| Genetically Engineered organisms are in much of the food we eat today so it is immpossible to not be exposed anymore, and much of our food has been sprayed with all kinds of stuff that is not good to ingest and washing off simply moves it into our water supply so even if we do not eat them we drink them. Composting those materials does dilute them, somewhat, but you do what you can do to limit your exposure. Even the most pristine organic garden will be exposed to contaimination, from the air and rain, and since we cannot control that we cannot worry about it. |
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- Posted by gardengal48 PNW zone 8 (My Page) on Fri, May 27, 11 at 8:39
| Compost has been called the 'great neutralizer' because the decomposition process is able to take a variety of materials, some even harmful, and break then down into their harmless elemental components. You do not necessarily have to limit compost to only "organic" ingredients to arrive at a suitably organic product. But you do have to have a first rate, active composting operation that achieves and maintains proper temperatures for a suitable length of time. That is the only way to be sure all the organisms responsible for the complexities of decomposition are doing their job thoroughly. The definition of 'organic' has many interpretations. Under its most literal definition, compost by nature is organic - it is sourced from once living materials. That is most likely why you won't find much detail on creating "organic" compost :-) But if your composting process is thorough and achieves and maintains proper temperatures, there is minimal risk of persistence or contamination by less than perfectly natural materials that may be included, like GMO seeds, pesticides, medicines, etc. |
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| The problem I see is that: 1) if you had oil or gasoline on oak leaves, which you composted. You could have the compost tested for the chemical of the oil or gasoline. 2) But I am not sure how you would know if the plant material was GMO or not. Even if you could, not sure you could test the finished compost for GMO. This what is so scary about the GMO, we are not sure where it is , how to test for it or how to destroy it. I would agree with gardengal48, Hotter the compost, the purer the finish compost. |
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- Posted by darth_weeder z7 NY (My Page) on Sat, May 28, 11 at 17:04
| Technically, since we don't live in a vacuum it would be near impossible to create 100 percent pure organic compost, although by spending enough we could set up a sterile environment under lab conditions to do so. my advice try your best and let compost happen |
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