‘Give it a Grow’ is this year’s theme for the 10th international Compost Awareness Week which takes place from May 2nd to 8th and aims to encourage us all to try something different and ‘Give Composting a Grow’.
Around a third of us currently compost at home, which is surprisingly low when to many of us it seems such an obvious thing to do, and given the fact that we are constantly being told we are a nation of gardeners.
Why would you send to landfill the likes of used teabags, shredded paper, vegetable peelings, banana skins, egg shells, fruit peelings or vegetable or salad waste when you could put it to good use in your own garden, help the environment, and save yourself money at the same time? Even spent toilet roll holders and the contents of your vacuum cleaner can be composted and later reused, on your own garden, for your own benefit!
In fact they say that more than 30% of the contents of the average household wastebin can be composted.
And don’t be fooled into thinking that sending your compostable waste to a landfill site is the same as using it to create compost in your own compost bin. It isn’t. In a landfill tip that waste causes harmful greenhouse gases to be released into the atmposphere because it is trapped amidst layers of other, non-compostable waste, which do not allow air to circulate amongst it.
Despite recent cutbacks, many councils are still offering discounted compost bins and reduced price peat-free compost, and many DIY stores are running special promotions to support the campaign.
In a future article we’ll be looking at composting in greater detail including exactly what can and what cannot be composted, the variety of compost bins available and which might be best suited to you, where to site you compost bin and much, much more.
Editor, Third Age.
See also: more Gardening articles.
Written by Editor.
