Appl Biochem Biotechnol (2011) 165:270–278 275 Fig. 3 a The evolution of the pH in soil after amending it with MC-processed food scrap as a function of the burial interval and independent of the load. b The evolution of pH in soil as a function of soil load with MC residue and excluding the first 10 days after amending the soil upper limit observed in this study was not the result of nonlinearity or poor recovery. Serial dilutions of polysaccharide-spiked soil samples showed that the PSA assay was responsive and linear in excess of the 9% threshold. VOA analysis run on fresh soil samples drawn from field sites previously amended with processed food scrap ~2 months out showed the presence of three distinct VOAs— acetic, propanoic, and butyric acid (Fig. 6). Butyric acid was the dominant VOA present (~0.08% w/ww). The concentration of acetic and propanoic acid in the same soil samples was far less, approximately 1/100th of that of butyric acid. Although alcohols were present in the MC product, no alcohols were detected in the soil samples, most likely due to fast oxidation. Discussion A significant amount of C (~40–80 Gt) has been lost from soil in the last 200 years due to deforestation and poor management of arable soils [3, 4]. Because restoration of SOC improves soil quality and promotes further C sequestration from the atmosphere via C- fixation by plants, there is much interest in finding how best to recapture and restore the Fig. 4 a The soil polysaccharide content relative to the burial interval of MC-processed food scrap. b The evolution of the polysaccharide fragmentation in soil as a function of the polysaccharide content of soil