Waste organic materials like lawn clippings and leaves may be composted and recycled to fertilize and condition the soil for gardens. The rate of this process is quite slow when materials are left spread thinly over the grass, but the rate of the process in piles is accelerated by adjusting conditions. The process use organisms processing oxygen and the organic solids in water solutions. To speed the process, growth of the organisms must be accelerated by increasing the temperature to an optimum level and incorporating large concentrations of oxygen on the wet surface of the solid organics. This process is heterogenous involving a gas, a solution, and a solid.

Compost basics