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From Waste to Wonderful: A Japanese Way of Composting Food Waste

by Erika Fehr

Handling food waste is a challenge because of the potential for obnoxious odors that may come along with it.

Not so in more than 1,000 Japanese communities using an earth friendly microbial solution called EM1 or Effective Microorganisms™. EM1 is a blend of three natural and safe main strains that work synergistically.

The person behind the formula is Teruo Higa, professor of horticulture in Okinawa, Japan. He uses microbes as nature's technology.

Although raw and cooked meat, bones, and dairy products are included in the food waste, only a slight smell like pickles is produced after the EM1 microbes have done their work. They cause the material to ferment, similar to silage produced from hay.

After about one month, the collected material is processed to maturity and is called "Bokashi." This Japanese term can be translated generally as "fermented organic matter."

Fermentation is a safe and nutrient-saving alternative to aerobic composting.

The Bokashi is used either as compost or animal feed when formed into pellets and dried. This technology is low cost.

In government supported recycling projects, the end products are sold to farmers, with the benefit that the EM1 solution in turn can be delivered for free to community residents.

These Japanese communities are a model for a full cycle type of recycling for food waste.

Few people realize that in the United States, about 50 percent of the food that is produced goes to the trash and 22 percent of the material in landfills is food waste.

More efforts need to be made to use food waste as a valuable resource for compost production.

Local models are available in Thurston County, for example, the food waste recycling program started last year in the Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater area. We're getting away from labeling trash as "bad" and only taking it somewhere to get it out of sight.

To find out more, read "An Earth Saving Revolution" and "Our Future Reborn" both by Teruo Higa. The books are available at the Eastside Olympia Food Coop.

These books reveal the vast potential for resolving the problem of waste and pollution modern civilization promotes.

An earlier edition of the Green Pages reported the successful cleanup of Seto Inland Sea, a severely polluted bay in Japan, using EM technology.

Erika Fehr is an environmental educator in Yelm.

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