A Walking Tour of Millinocket Stream

Nature biodegrades everything it makes back into basic building blocks, so that new living things can be made from the old. Every resource made by nature return to nature. Plants and animals biodegrade; even raw crude oil will degrade when exposed to water, air, and the necessary salts. Nature has perfected this system, and we simply need to learn how to participate in it.

A leaf takes about a year before it becomes a part of the forest floor, while an iron shovel can take years to rust away into nothing.