Composting

Home Composter Offer 2008/09

Discounted compost bins are available to residents of Warrington. For details of the offer view the home composter leaflet 

Composting is nature’s way of recycling. It is an excellent way of improving the soil condition in your garden and there is no need to go to the expense of buying compost when it is simple to produce your own! 

Composting your biodegradable waste also cuts down on waste going to landfill and so helps to protect our environment. 

When you have your composter just follow the step by step guide below to produce your own compost… 

1) Choose the best location for your compost bin. The bin should be: 

• Placed on soil, not a hard surface. 
• In a shady spot if possible.
• In a place where access to it is easy all year round        

2) Start filling the bin with your garden and kitchen waste.  

You can put in: 

• Garden trimmings, dead flowers, grass cuttings
• Uncooked vegetables and fruit, tea bags, egg shells, potato peelings etc
• Bedding from vegetarian  pets like rabbits, guinea pigs and gerbils 
• Autumn leaves
• Wool and other natural fibres
• Paper (screwed up or shredded) and cardboard – not too much though!        

Do not put in: 

• Cooked food, meat and fish
• Droppings from meat eating pets like dogs and cats
• Diseased plants and weeds        

3) Now your composter is up and running you can leave nature to do its job. Continue to add to the composter until it is full (you can start a new one once full). Keep the compost moist but not too wet, add water or more dry material to keep the material moist.  

4) Your compost is ready when it looks like rich dark soil and has an earthy smell. The whole process can take several months, even up to a year or more. Take the material from the bottom of the heap – putting any unrotten material back in the heap. 

Tips! 

• Young nettles are a very good natural accelerator - they will help speed up the process.
• Always add a good mixture of materials – not too much of one thing.
• Try to add different materials in layers.        

Further information can be found at www.compost.org.uk  and www.recyclenow.com/compost 

Wormery 

If you are going to be mostly composting food scraps then a wormery is the best method. On average a kitchen will produce 200kg of organic waste every year, this waste can be used to produce a very nutrient rich fertiliser for use on the garden or for repotting houseplants. A wormery can also be kept in- doors so is ideal for people with no garden or very small gardens. 

Worms can break down organic waste very quickly, in fact they can eat half their own body weight in waste each day. For more information on wormeries contact Wiggly Wigglers on freephone 0800 216990 or view their website on www.wigglywigglers.co.uk 

Community Recycling Centres

Green garden waste left by Warrington residents at the Community Recycling Centres is transported to Haddocks Wood where it is transformed into our home produced compost derived soil improver ECOMPOST.