Composting Awareness Week 2008
9 May 2008
This coming week sees the beginning of the eighth annual Compost Awareness Week. The co-ordinators, WRAP and the Compost Association are encouraging everyone to green up their environment either by beginning to produce their own compost at home, or buying compost containing recycled material. Both of these choices are great but of course making your own compost is cheaper, better for the environment and much more fun to do.
Composting is a really efficient form of waste management since 100% of the process can be done by us in our own back gardens. Dealing with our organic waste at home will really help to cut down on methane emissions from landfill; methane is a greenhouse gas which is many times more potent than carbon dioxide. Over a third of our domestic rubbish could be diverted into a compost bin, and within few months it can be put to excellent use in the garden and even used to grow vegetables.
Starting to compost at home is very easy once you know the basic tricks of the trade to make it work smoothly. The rest of the time you can just sit back and let nature’s perfectly refined recycling system do the work. With Compost Awareness Week just about to begin there is no better time to start learning how you could benefit from composting your green waste. There is plenty of information available and compost bins can be purchased from Warwickshire County Council for next to nothing.
If done properly, composting is a clean and hygienic way of recycling organic waste. If you have small children, composting is a great activity for them to help out with in the garden, as well as giving them some hands-on science lessons!
Back in February 2007 my predecessor Jenny Sansom also covered the topic of composting at home. If you are interested in reading this article as well, it can be found in our Action 21 archives at www.action21.co.uk/media_centre
There are a few best practice tips that are really worth looking up to help you compost more effectively and to get a better quality product at the end. Information can be found at www.compostawarenessweek.org.uk and www.recyclenow.com/compost