Glossary

This term describes chemical agents for the destruction of plant and animal pests of all kinds.

Boards planed on the front, levelled on the back and edged on the sides, which have tongue and groove joints.

Expanded clay is ground clay that is fired in a kiln at 1,200 degrees Celsius. During combustion, the material expands spherically to four to five times its original volume.

Wood fibres, wood chips or bark products obtained from wood waste, which are used in potting soil instead of peat. They have good properties similar to those of peat, but no bogs are destroyed in order to obtain them.

Bogs are wet habitats overgrown with low vegetation. They consist of 95 percent water and are therefore large water reservoirs. Bogs are habitats in which more organic matter forms than is decomposed. In addition, peatlands are important carbon reservoirs. Almost half of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is bound in bogs.

Upcycling is a form of recycling in which waste and seemingly useless materials are creatively transformed into something new.

This approach, invented by the German chemist Michael Braungart and the American architect William McDonough, puts product cycles in a holistic context. The goal is not to dispose of the substances and materials used in products as waste, but to reuse them. That means continuing to use it after using it for another purpose.

The goal of green manure is to improve the soil. Certain plants are left in the field or planted for this purpose and then incorporated into the surface of the soil or used for mulching. This improves soil life, builds up humus, protects the soil from erosion, improves the supply of nitrogen to the following

The term “emission” means the discharge of pollutants and other disruptive factors into the environment. In environmental law, this includes discharges from toxic, harmful or environmentally hazardous chemical substances. Common examples are gaseous or particulate pollutant emissions (from cars and airplanes), liquid emissions (from contaminated sites and factories), particulate emissions (from dumps), road noise, and

Greenhouse gases reflect sunlight bouncing off the Earth, acting like greenhouse glass. Air pollutants that affect the climate include carbon dioxide (CO2), which is produced when fossil fuels are used, methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and fluorinated gases (F-gases).

Nutrients and energy are passed on in cycles in almost all ecosystems. Producers are the organisms that produce biomass. These are mainly plants and bacteria. Consumers consume this biomass and are dependent energy-wise on the producers. Consumers are mainly humans and animals. Decomposers are the creatures in the producer-consumer-decomposer cycle that are responsible for breaking

“Vegetation cover” means the plant layer covering the ground.

The term “soil beings / creatures” (Edaphon) is used to refer to all the organisms living in the soil.