When it comes to efforts in sustainability, making the switch to biodegradable materials can make a huge difference. Both in your personal life and commercially. With businesses looking to make more environmentally conscious decisions, the discussions around how to integrate sustainability are always evolving. In the landscaping industry, one of the key areas being focussed on is the use of biodegradable materials- something that has a lot of benefits for businesses as well as the wider environment.
Why Are Biodegradable Landscaping Materials Important?
A biodegradable material is basically anything that can be broken down into natural components by microorganisms, allowing it to return to the environment without causing any harm.
When it comes to landscaping, adopting biodegradable materials is an easy way of making landscaping more sustainable and helping reduce our customer’s impact on the environment. One of the best tools we have for this is natural mulching. We talked in this blog about the benefits of mulching in general, but when you switch out the artificial mulches like shingle, slate, glass and other aggregates with biodegradable mulch like bark, straw or wood chip, your business can see even more benefits.
What Are Biodegradable Materials
Organic Mulch: Made from things like wood chips, straw, bark and compost, these mulches break down naturally over time and add more organic matter to the soil, keeping it healthy.
Compostable Ranting Containers: A type of container made from materials like peat, wood or paper. These containers hold their form when planting, and then slowly break down to integrate with the soil. It significantly reduces waste, and promotes a more sustainable approach to landscape planting.
Biodegradable Erosion Matting: A game-changing way of providing effective erosion control without harming the environment. While standard erosion matting is made from plastic and synthetic fibres, biodegradable varieties are made from natural organic materials like coconut coir, straw and wood fibres.
The Benefits of Biodegradable Materials For Your Grounds
Reduced environmental impact: The whole point of biodegradable materials is that they break themselves down naturally. So less waste ends up in landfills, significantly reducing the environmental impact of landscaping activity. On top of that, it helps conserve natural resources. Plastic-based mulches are made using fossil fuels, and even producing ‘natural’ mulches like stones uses a huge amount of CO2. contributing to global pollution. Biodegradable materials like wood much, do not: And as if that wasn’t enough, biodegradable mulches also improve soil health and reduce chemical runoff into waterways, leaving many areas healthier than they were before.
Water conservation: By prioritizing eco-friendly gardening materials and using strategic placements, businesses and land owners can also significantly reduce the amount of water used to maintain their grounds. That’s because biodegradable mulches help the soil retain more moisture, so it doesn’t need watering as often. And with soil quality improved (more on that in a moment), the soil can absorb water more efficiently too. This is especially useful in a drought, where every drop counts!
Soil enrichment: Biodegradable mulch is chock full of nutrients and organic matter. As this breaks down naturally, all of that goodness is released into the soil, keeping it healthy and giving it a boost. All the while those organic materials are also making the soil more porous, so it can retain more water. All of this decomposition also attracts a wide range of microorganisms, which help boost soil fertility and lead to much healthier plants.
Reduction of pesticides: Commercial grounds can attract a lot of pests, especially if they aren’t maintained properly or there is food on-site. Biodegradable mulches act as a natural pest -prevention, so you don’t need to rely on herbicides or pesticides. This has a double benefit since those chemicals can cause damage to your soil, so reducing them where possible is ideal.
Protection of biodiversity: Combining all of the things we’ve already talked about, biodegradable mulch plays a significant role in protecting the biodiversity of your grounds. You are not only reducing the amount of plastic you use to maintain your grounds, but you’re protecting and creating habitats for creatures in the local eco-system. Plants, insects, animals, amphibians and more all benefit from your choice to use biodegradable materials.
At Pod Landscapes we’re not only passionate about grounds maintenance- we care about the environment too. We believe that if we can help local businesses make this kind of small change, then it will all make a very real difference. If you would like to find out more about our grounds maintenance services or the biodegradable materials we use, just get in touch with the team today.
