A juice company dumped orange peels in a national park. This is what it looks like today (www.upworthy.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20549992

...one thousand trucks poured into the national park, offloading over 12,000 metric tons of sticky, mealy, orange compost onto the worn-out plot. The site was left untouched and largely unexamined for over a decade. A sign was placed to ensure future researchers could locate and study it.

16 years later, Janzen dispatched graduate student Timothy Treuer to look for the site where the food waste was dumped.

Treuer initially set out to locate the large placard that marked the plot — and failed.

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[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I would have thought it would make the soil too acidic. Maybe it was at first and only certain plants pioneered.

I know there is a myth about not throwing citrus into compost for your garden but I hear it is fine in moderate amounts. So is meat. In fact any food waste. Certainly has worked for me.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I'd not considered that and wonder how much of a limiting factor it was. It certainly seems to have done well for the land in terms of biomass, but as for species diversity who knows?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Article says it increased biodiversity. But that is nearly 30 years after the initial dump.

this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025

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