Characteristics of a Sampling of New York State Composts

Abstract

Composting and marketing of composted products is an option for managing organic residuals. Composting is an environmentally sound and energy efficient way of managing manure, yard waste, food scraps, paper residuals, and even animal mortality. However, the resulting product should be used in order for it to also be profitable. Many farms, schools and other composters have difficulty finding markets for their composts as consumers have little knowledge of compost qualities and sources. This document summarizes the characteristics that pertain to compost quality and relates them to compost sampled in New York State. The appendix provides means, standard deviations, minimum, maximum and median values for each of the parameters. All individual values can be found in this excel file.