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Dumped orange peel transformed a barren pasture (2017)
- tomcar288 2y ago>> has eventually revitalised the desolate site into a thriving, lush forest. That's an understatement. every hard core gardener knows organic matter is the key to wonderful soil which is the key to wonderful produce. We want as much of it as possible (to turn into compost). Personally, I keep all my orange peels, all my fruit refuse/kitchen scraps, every last oak leaf that drops on my property and thensome (suprisingly no one wants them!). I compost pretty much every last drop organic matter that comes onto our property.
- quantified 2y agoVery misleading title. Barren soil is barren soil. Desert is a classification based on rainfall. Dumping ground is/was not a desert.
- 7e 2y agoYou could call it a “ecological desert”, but that said, it’s not even the title of TFA, which is more accurate.
- metadat 2y agoThanks, I wasn't happy with the title either, for what is otherwise a decent article. TFA's title exceeded the HN limit, so I've done what I can.
- dang 2y agoOk, we've put the barren pasture the article talks about back in the title above.
- gbickford 2y agoThis article is from 2017
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoWhat is the normal outcome of these orange peels? Fed to livestock? Mulch? Or just added to landfill? The results were impressive, but I imagine there were months of rotting orange peels. Which is probably not ideal neighbors, but fine in otherwise barren, uninhabited land.
- wnissen 2y agoI thought it was interesting that the climate caused them to decompose, when orange peel is one of the most common forms of garbage I see on higher elevation (6000 ft. / 2000 m) trails. It's dry enough that the peel effectively never rots. Just goes to show that it's all about the system. https://thetrek.co/pacific-crest-trail/how-much-trash-gets-left-on-the-pct-two-scientists-thru-hiked-it-to-find-out/ https://thetrek.co/pacific-crest-trail/how-much-trash-gets-l...
- stevage 2y agoYou don't need to imagine: >"Kind of passing through this gross stage in between of kind of sludgy stuff filled with fly larvae."
- datavirtue 2y agoYeah, the land was moving for a while.
- rolfea 2y agoI wonder about the practicality of complementing that stage of the decomposition with a free-range poultry operation. Bringing in chickens, the birds eat the larvae, and generate more fertilizer along the way.
- stevage 2y agoReminds me of some permaculture setups I've seen that do something exactly like that. There's a raised bin full of food scraps, it gets populated with fly larvae, which the chickens eat. There are also startups that take in organic waste and use it to breed soldier fly larvae, which they then harvest and sell as protein for animal food etc.
- cbanek 2y agoI wish they had a picture of this fig tree they mention.
- fourthark 2y ago> a fig tree so huge it would take three people wrapping their arms around the trunk to cover the circumference. No way that grew in 16 years…
- cortesoft 2y agoFig trees are incredibly fast growing. They can grow 15 feet in a single year
- asdasdsddd 2y agoFig trees are insane, you can literally put a branch on the ground and it will grow
- CuriousCosmic 2y agoKeep in mind that banyan trees (those massive trees that can basically be a small forest in of themselves) are figs as well. Figs grow incredibly fast and often go from a bunch of vines all fighting to climb for sunlight into a giant fused mass that is a fig tree.
- Suppafly 2y ago>Keep in mind that banyan trees (those massive trees that can basically be a small forest in of themselves) are figs as well. Do they produce fruit or are they just related to the fruiting ones?
- CuriousCosmic 2y agoThey are figs so they do produce the same kind of syconiums as figs but it's not really intended to be consumed by humans because it is small, tastes bitter, and can be a mild laxative. Plenty of other animals consume it tho and it's used a lot for feeding livestock.
- WalterBright 2y agoI read about that case years ago, and as a result started composting my biomass garbage, especially the orange peel! I don't generate enough to make a difference, but the local fauna eats most of it. A couple of onions have sprouted in the pile.
- tonyedgecombe 2y agoWe used to do that, once I figured out how to stop the rodents. In the end our local council started collecting food waste which was a lot less hassle for us and we could include bones. We get to collect free compost once a year.
- alex_duf 2y ago> once I figured out how to stop the rodents Any tips?
- tonyedgecombe 2y agoI used a traditional bin[1], drilled some holes in the bottom and buried it 12 inches into the ground. Prior to that we had a bin with a door at the bottom but the rodents always gnawed away at the door and got in. [1] https://www.tensens.com.au/productimages/SAB78025.jpg https://www.tensens.com.au/productimages/SAB78025.jpg
- datavirtue 2y agoCats.
- WalterBright 2y agoYou can't stop the rodents.
- onemoresoop 2y agoYou can invite their predators to take care of them.
- 2y ago
- WalterBright 2y agoI read years ago that the local Indians, instead of farming or conventional gardening, would create gardens with the desired plants all mixed together (including trees and bushes). This would create an ecosystem of interdependent crops which would provide food year round. They're largely abandoned and forgotten, but one can find them having gone wild in various places. They're marked by a marked diversity of flora.
- klooney 2y agoI think there's a bit about that at the end of Seeing Like a State. Sometimes this is what is meant by permaculture.
- vonnik 2y agoThere’s def a bit in Mann’s 1491.
- b800h 2y agoThis is the principle behind biodynamic farming, right?
- kombookcha 2y agoEh, sorta. Biodynamic farming in the form promoted by Rudolf Steiner is kinda semi-mystical and involves astrology, lunar phases and manipulating the 'cosmic forces of the soil' by doing things like burying quartz inside a cow horn. But biodynamic farming does also emphasise the kind of cohesive view of your crops as an interacting system that you'd find in modern permaculture. It's just that biodynamic implies a bunch of other spirituality stuff that you wouldn't normally consider part of permaculture.
- pfdietz 2y agoHeh. Sounds like something that works by accident. In that vein, I'm reminded of the old tradition of consulting oracles to make decisions when hunting or before a battle. If we see an even number of crows we do this, else we do that, things like that. The reason this worked was because the oracle was acting as a random number generator, and being unpredictable can have advantages in such situations (a lesson from game theory).
- asdasdsddd 2y agoI'm surprised that the oranges didnt make the soil too acidic, but I guess organic matter + water == lushness works 100% of the time
- cosmotic 2y agoThe juice is acidic. Are the peels?
- dylan604 2y agoIt is recommended against putting them into your composite.
- vlabakje90 2y agoI'm not completely sure, but that might be because of the oils in the peel. Citrus peel oil has antimicrobial properties.
- linuxandrew 2y agoSome people recommend avoiding citrus and onions in compost and worm farms typically because worms don't like it in the early stages of decomposition. I've never followed that rule personally and my compost system works really well. I get some black soldier fly larvae and other vermiculture in the early stages. In case you're wondering the black soldier flies aren't annoying like houseflies and typically steer clear of homes and humans. I usually only see a few BSFs around the compost and sometimes a lot of larvae, but it's seasonal.
- pfdietz 2y agoI've never had any trouble.
- dylan604 2y agoSome plants prefer a more acidic soil compared to others. Tomatoes are pretty well known for liking acidic soil.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- jonathanyc 2y agoThis is particularly interesting to me because (1) they have a natural control, given that it’s such a small area, and (2) the mechanism is apparently a mystery? > When comparing the site to a nearby control area that hadn't been treated with orange peels, Treuer's team found their experimental compost heap yielded richer soil, more tree biomass, and a broader diversity of tree species – including a fig tree so huge it would take three people wrapping their arms around the trunk to cover the circumference. > As for how the orange peels were able to regenerate the site so effectively in just 16 years of isolation, nobody's entirely sure. > "That's the million dollar question that we don't yet have the answer to," Treuer told Popular Science.
- ChoHag 2y ago[dead]
- ProxCoques 2y ago> "It's a shame where we live in a world with nutrient-limited degraded ecosystems and also nutrient-rich waste streams. We'd like to see those things come together a little bit," Saw a talk about circular economies once. One of the things that stuck in my mind was, "If mankind has any chance of a permanent occupation of earth, the current meaning of the word 'waste' will have to fade away."
- bluGill 2y agoThe hard part is you cannot ship sewage from cities to farms on the same trucks you used to bring the food in from the farms as sewage contains harmful things you don't want in contact with food.
- hoosieree 2y ago"Septic Tanks Pumped. Swimming Pools Filled. Not Same Truck."
- svnt 2y agoSituations like this are exactly why trucks carry containers. You don’t want to reuse the containers for those two things but you can absolutely reuse the trucks. The trucks cost on the order of six figures, the containers an order of magnitude less.
- bluGill 2y agoSae problem the truck is still moveing both ways just sometimes with empty containers
- mlavrent 2y agoBut it can often do so more efficiently than just carrying one container at a time when they're empty - see this company that's solving the "return container" problem by folding up to 4 containers into the space of one for the return trip. https://4foldcontainers.com/proposition/ https://4foldcontainers.com/proposition/
- globular-toast 2y agoIsn't "barren pasture" an oxymoron?
- jessekv 2y agoIt would be if it weren't so common. Overgrazing is a huge problem worldwide.
- ddmf 2y agoIt's very obvious when you walk through Scotland's forestry which trees are native, and which have been transplanted because there is lush grass and plants underneath the native trees, and a lot of the time bare patches underneath the imported.
- Amezarak 2y agoI don't think this of use as a general discriminator. At least in the US, some native trees kill or prevent the growth of pretty much anything under their canopy via shade and the volume/density of leaf litter.
- jddj 2y agoAlso chemically: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allelopathy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allelopathy
- jessekv 2y agoAre the imported ones walnut trees?
- ctippett 2y ago> But a year after the contract was signed — during which time 12,000 metric tons of orange peels were unloaded onto the degraded land — TicoFruit, a rival company, sued, arguing the company had “defiled a national park.” The rival company won the case in front of Costa Rica’s Supreme Court, and the orange-peel-covered land was largely overlooked for the next 15 years. Sounds like corporate jealousy on the part of the competitor. I wonder if the supreme court decision has set a precedent preventing future projects like this from going ahead. I don't think anyone would describe the land after 15 years as being "defiled" – quite the opposite.
- Clamchop 2y agoI wonder under what legal theory it was decided. They'd seem to lack standing for not being party to the arrangement, but I'm not a lawyer and this was in Costa Rica anyway.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIt really depends on the national park I think; there's one in my country called the Hoge Veluwe, which is a pretty arid and poor area. However, that's the local ecosystem and the objective is to maintain it. They could dump a heap of green waste on it and make it teeming with life, but... that's not the ecosystem being protected.
- voiceblue 2y agoThere were no repercussions at all to their competitor (and, the Supreme Court sided with them), so it was logically the right move for a corporation. If the country or its people don’t bring the repercussions now, why wouldn’t these things continue to happen? It’s not a corporations job to regulate itself. If anything we can only blame the short sightedness and pettiness of humanity, which is causing bigger issues to flourish today.
- jgeada 2y agoThis is the thing that frustrates me so much about this sort of discussion: Just because something is legal, it doesn't mean it is ethical. We keep dismissing ethics as any consideration from business conduct. It is legal to ignore any and all environmental costs that have not yet been made illegal, so are corporations duty bound to ignore any obvious deleterious consequences as long as there is money to make today? Something feels very wrong about this approach.
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoWas there follow up now, to overturn the case to allow dumping/composting again? Stuff like this seems like such a win-win it would be sad if it didn't lead to some changes now.
- BoggleFiend 2y agoOne thing not mentioned in the article is the use of pesticide. Were the peels organic, or do the pesticides naturally degrade in a harmless way?
- eYrKEC2 2y agoYes, modern pesticides degrade. Farmers keep very detailed spray records and fields have essentially "lock out, tag out" times after certain spray applications. Other sprays can't be applied X number of days before harvest, because the application's degradation isn't complete. After harvest, produce who's skin is consumed, like apples, go through a "drencher" and later "dump tank", to perform more washing of the produce's skin.
- Suppafly 2y ago>One thing not mentioned in the article is the use of pesticide. Were the peels organic, or do the pesticides naturally degrade in a harmless way? Seems irrelevant, presumably they wash them before juicing them.
- idunnoman1222 2y agoI don’t know where people get the idea that pesticides are forever chemicals. All of them denature, The problem is sometimes not before they reach your table Chloripyriphos (sp?) are probably the longest lasting one and they don’t use them in any first world country and they’re half-life is something like 60 days The days of ddt are passed
- salad-tycoon 2y agoAssuming and making up numbers for pesticide XYZ degrades in 6 months. First what is degrades is that 100% or 50%? Is that based on just because it’s no longer effective? Does your statement change if considering dumping huge amounts in a highly concentrated area? Does that concentrate what small percentage remains after 6 months, 6 years etc and does that change the conditions of decay for the stuff at the bottom of the pile, middle, top? Just seems like dumping a 1000 trucks worth of something might introduce some new factors into the equation. But yeah, I’d be more worried about living near or down stream of a rotting orange sludge landfill that’s pulsating with fly larvae I guess in the end than the pesticides, not that people who tend to live near these dump sites really have a choice one way or another.
- laeri 2y agoThis might be misleading as often biodiversity can't be measured by how lush it looks and how much vegetation there is. Certain plants and animals can only survive in arid landscapes that look 'dead' but can't survive otherwise as they are adapted to an environment with less nutrients. So it is possible that you actually reduce biodiversity by doing things like this. Often land has too much nutrients due to farming and leaving arid landscape as it is might be better.
- idunnoman1222 2y agoYou would only do this to a land that is degraded. I don’t mean, degraded like in its natural state I mean, degraded as an already fucked up by man. In this case, the land was choked with invasive grasses
- FredPret 2y ago"Dumped orange peel" from the title is really 12k tons of orange peel
- Suppafly 2y agothank you. at first I thought this was akin to the dropped cheetos in the cave story from a while back but then I remembered I had read about this dropping of tons of peels story before years ago.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago> As for how the orange peels were able to regenerate the site so effectively in just 16 years of isolation, nobody's entirely sure. Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is: Maybe it wasn't only the orange peels. Perhaps there were other factors that contributed to the turn around. And given that this was a one-off they need to reproduce this experiment again, ideally two more times. Once is not a pattern. Even twice isn't a pattern. Three times? Now we can begin to identify and consider there might be a causation-worthy pattern. To often we want a single causation, and more often than not it's not that simple.
- rurp 2y agoSomewhat related to this, when I first setup a compost bin at home it was simply to try to reduce yard and food waste, and I hoped it wouldn't be too annoying to use. I was surprised to find that I've actually had a lot of fun with it! Especially around trying to optimize the throughput. It's interesting to me to try and find the ideal balance of inputs that will generate compost quickly and minimize organic waste. Managing a system that takes a whole bunch of scrap and turns it into something useful, in a largely autonomous way, tickles the same part of my brain that gets satisfaction from writing a custom script to automate away some annoying but useful task.
- timsneath 2y agohttps://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/08/22/orange-new-green-how-orange-peels-revived-costa-rican-forest https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/08/22/orange-new-green-h... seems to be the original article; this is a very light rewrite by the looks of things. Perhaps we can change the linked article, dang?