Was wondering if deep trenches where filled out in the desert with food bio-waste. Could we perform small scale terra-forming? Would it just end up creating a mess. Kinda wonder of we could even bank away useable biomass in the deserts even.
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The problem with farming in that part of Nevada is lack of rain (or water Rights) you could compost to make soil but it’s not a matter of putting in in a trench, that may create a biohazard in an uncontrolled environment
There is a pig farmer near Las Vegas who collects a lot of waste buffet food , blends everything up and feeds it to the pigs – far more environmentally efficient and profitable
Sure. I have a compost heap in my back yard where I put all of my raw vegetable scraps. More sophisticated setups can handle meat and fecal matter too.
Turning desert into productive farmland might be a cool science experiment, but it’s not really necessary. We can already produce more than enough food to feed everyone on Earth. The problem is distributing it efficiently and equitably.
Generally you should properly compost it first. When you collect food scraps, they probably are composted in controlled circumstances rather than dumping it in a trench in the desert. It would probably dry out in the desert and take a long time (or basically never) become usable soil.
There is a lot of compost available from processed food waste and from cow manure, etc. It’s widely used as fertilizer in many places, and it works well.
So in addition to your idea of using food waste from local casinos, you could bring nutrient-rich soil in from somewhere else (compost or from another source).
The main problem in deserts is water, though. The plants that can survive with so little water are used to the small amount of other nutrients in the soil (their growth rate can’t be super high without much water anyways). Plants that would need more nutrients from the soil can’t survive with so little water.
And water is a lot harder to carry in, as soon as you add more of it, it starts to evaporate, and it’s heavy. Las Vegas gets its water from an artificial lake made by a dam on the Colorado River. This can only supply so much water and it’s a big problem. So they would not waste their limited water supply by attempting to make the desert more fertile.
Most of the casino food waste in Las Vegas goes to the pig farms. There was a sad news story during the shut down about the farms not being able to support the pigs anymore.
Edit: [https://www.foxnews.com/us/las-vegas-pig-farm-food-scraps-casinos-coronavirus-pandemic](https://www.foxnews.com/us/las-vegas-pig-farm-food-scraps-casinos-coronavirus-pandemic)
Terra Preta puts organic waste in a trench and covers it for a year to compost. Then they light a fire over it to convert the compost to bio char. After it cools it is dug up and is said to be the best fertilizer in the world. Could you imagine the results if in addition to separating recycling from garbage, cities also separated organic waste for compost? Exporting it could create rich farmland in otherwise barren areas of the world. Unfortunately cost and corruption are barriers to that.
This is actively done in many cities, and often times large companies will buy food waste for fertilizer as it is cost efficient.
The only thing you have to do to food waste to make it usable is to compost it.
Though I don’t do this, i do compost left over clippings from plants and my grass to make fertilizer.
Lots of bio material can change an ecosystem for the better.
Here’s a story from Costa Rica where they dumped 1,000 truckloads of orange peels into a thin, sickly looking forest.
Once they all decomposed, all the biomatter turned to forest lush and green.
https://www.sciencealert.com/how-12-000-tonnes-of-dumped-orange-peel-produced-something-nobody-imagined
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