Building our soil naturally with compost saves energy (and therefore money) on several counts. Kitchen scraps and garden clippings that are thrown away must be hauled off to the landfill, whereas the only energy spent composting in our backyards or neighborhoods is our own physical energy, which gets us in better shape and makes us healthier, plus we’re building our soil for free. Fertilizer bought from the store is normally manufactured in a factory hundreds or thousands of miles away (maybe even overseas) so it not only takes energy to manufacture the fertilizer and its packaging, but also a lot of energy to haul it to the store so we can burn even more energy driving to the store to buy it and bring it home.