You can do a heap to help

IN the face of the crises we face - peak oil, climate change, unstable global financial systems - to "conserve" is no longer enough.

I've been strongly influenced by permaculture thinking in recent years.

Permaculture's focus isn't on conserving or even sustaining - instead, it encourages us to focus on regeneration and restoration.

It teaches frameworks and methods that improve, heal, make whole, restore - whether that be damaged soil, degraded farms, dysfunctional communities or broken decision-making processes.

Take one of my favourite activities: making compost. It's one of the most satisfying, productive and regenerative things I do on my urban block.

I produce almost no rubbish for landfill.

Everything organic from my kitchen gets composted and most of the green waste from my garden, too.

Composting doesn't have to be hard work or time-consuming. You don't necessarily have to buy anything to get started - do it right and it doesn't smell, either.

I use seven methods of composting, in part so my block can demonstrate a method to suit just about anyone's situation.

Composting is a much better alternative than flicking a switch and grinding food scraps down the sink, burdening an expensive greywater system; or sending it to increasingly scarce landfill sites, where it will be mixed with contaminated materials and entombed in an airless environment. There, its slow, anaerobic decomposition will produce methane, a greenhouse gas far worse than CO2.

Those "out of sight, out of mind" alternatives divorces us from the consequences of our actions and our impact.

Many people are freaked out by the big challenges we face and feel overwhelmed and helpless.

Instead of adding to the pressure, we can do something right here at home, in our day to day life, that makes the world better.

Does that sound like a ridiculously big claim for a garden compost heap?

Consider this. Humus - the "black gold" that is finished compost - sequesters, or stores, carbon in the soil, especially in an organic system. Forget the fantasies about high-tech solutions to sequestering carbon.

This one is proven, without side effects, doesn't need billions to finance research - and most importantly, you and I can do it. Right here, right now, right where we live, we can take food scraps and garden waste out of the waste stream where they add to greenhouse gas emissions; and instead use it as a raw ingredient for improving soil health and fertility and reducing CO2 in the atmosphere.

It's not rubbish. It's an input and too valuable to waste.

It's true that any one of us can only do a tiny bit.

But that bit is ours to do and we already have the power to just do it.

And that's a fantastic antidote to that scared, helpless feeling that too often drives us to denial and the coping strategies that make us, and the planet, feel worse.

Interested? I ran composting workshops during last year's Permaculture Weekend and I'll offer them again in April - free.

Email for details: rachelrose.nz@gmail.com

R. K. Rose is a fermenter, formenter and gardener with a liking for permaculture thinking.