Cae Post MRF visit

Around 18 volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters recently attended a wonderful recycling scheme on the Shropshire-Wales border to find out all about how waste can be recycled.  The Cae Post project in Trewern near Shrewsbury is a social enterprise which employs adults with learning difficulties to help sort through recycling.

The scheme which is a registered charity as well as a limited company is currently sub-contracted to Veolia to provide over a dozen public recycling skips for plastic bottles at a variety of community venues around Shropshire such as supermarkets and village halls.  The plastic bottles they collect get taken back to their Materials Recycling Centre (MRF) in Trewern to be sorted mechanically, magnetically and in part by hand into their different polymer types.

The mixed plastic bottles from Shropshire households are (along with plastic bottles, cans, paper and cardboard collected from rural parts of Montgomeryshire) passed over a complex series of conveyor belts.

Overhead magnets automatically remove the ferrous cans and the plastic bottles get sorted by trained staff based on the type of plastic they are made from.



It all creates worthwhile employment for people who would otherwise struggle to find employment whilst at the same time keeping waste out of landfill.  Of course it also creates a high quality end product, as seen here, huge bales of plastic bottles and cans which is no longer seen as a useless pile of waste but a resource material which can be sold on to industry.









All the volunteers were impressed by the staff and volunteers at this wonderful project.  A big thank you to them for their hospitality in facilitating our study tour.  For more information on Cae Post visit www.caepost.co.uk

Candles landfill site visit

Volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters have been on a fact finding tour to find out where rubbish collected from homes all over Shropshire ends up.  We were kindly taken on a trip out to Little Wenlock near Telford to look at Veolias Candles Landfill site. 

The vast (19 ha.) site has been operating since 1997.  It includes both conventional and hazardous waste disposal cells and accepts mainly commercial and industrial wastes - more than 100,000 tonnes a year from around Shropshire, Telford and the Black Country areas.  In more recent years it has also become the main disposal site for about 75,000 tonnes a year of black bag rubbish from Shropshire Council.

One of the key environmental problems with a landfill site is leachate - all that rubbish rots and it gets rained on and you end up with a dirty liquid which also picks up traces of nasty pollutants present in the rubbish (like heavy metals) so it has to be controlled.  One of the green initiatives at this site is that they have their own on-site leachate treatment system.

This plant can treat 300,000 Litres of leachate per day.  The first treatment is to pass it through a sand based filter just to physically remove any suspended matter. It also gets passed through Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) to remove pollutants from the leachate.

The system not only reduces the pollution to the point that the remaining liquid can be safely discharged to the sewer for aerobic treatment but it also recycles the ammonia into a useful product (which can be used in combustion plant to reduce NOx pollution). The amonnia is removed via a process called air stripping - which is basically agitation of the water to increase the area of air to water contact. 

The landfill site also generates methane gas from the rotting rubbish.   As part of their efforts to stop this methane escaping into the environment (where it is a powerful greenhouse gas) the firm have installed a gas driven engine to generate electricity from this gas instead - it generates enough power for about 1,000 homes each year. 

Whilst we were visiting a truck arrived from Shropshire Council delivering about 40 tonnes of compacted rubbish - this happens several times a day.  It really helps to put the scale of our waste generation into context to see that amount of rubbish all just being buried.  

Despite the huge efforts put into environmental initiatives on the site, we all came away motivated to recycle and compost more and get others to do the same.  Whilst landfill will always have a role for safe and secure management of some types of non-recyclable wastes continuing to rely on landfill to the scale we do in the longer term is unsustainable and has to come to an end.

Hopefully we are now all in a position to understand the issues around landfill sites more now and help to communicate to the public why landfill is considered the least desirable option for managing our waste.  A big thanks to all the team at Veolia for arranging the visit.

Getting schools composting

Our experts at Garden Organic have developed a pilot project which involved placing in-vessel compost systems into seven schools. The general consensus is that the project has been very successful in diverting waste and getting more schools excited about compost. So if you know a school who might want to take composting on to the next level read on.


There are a few things that should be considered initially:


• for it to be successful there should be a dedicated member of staff, who can give regular commitment, plus preferably some pupil involvement.


• consider how much waste your school produces to find out which system will work best for you.


• some form of back up support needs to be provided – of course this could be their friendly local Master Composter!


• build in time during the planning stage for legislation difficulties & paperwork.

The schools, we got to take part, generally all loaded the systems on a daily basis, which took approximately 10-15minutes including the recording of data. Most schools included cooked and uncooked food, which was balanced with browns, usually in the form of wood pellets. A 50:50 or 60:40 mix of greens and browns, as you would all expect with home composting, resulted in an end product which was fresh smelling and a little dry and woody. The resulting compost does seem to appear a little woodier than you would expect from a home composting system, but most of the schools were happy with it and intended to use it as a mulch or soil conditioner.

Pupils were interested and keen to be involved and the teachers felt there was an educational value in understanding composting and its impact. The catering staff were also fully supportive. They found it quick and easy to use.  Schools generally felt that the financial saving of using the in-vessel system was insignificant, but they all felt the great benefit was in reducing landfill, being more sustainable and providing free compost for the garden.


So if you are considering a composting solution for a school, there is now a rich vein of experience anbd knowledge at Garden Organic so if want to know more feel free to drop them an email at: jgriffiths@gardenorganic.org.uk

Green groups call for Peat Tax

Green groups have urged the Government to slap a £1-per bag tax on peat-based compost in the Budget on 23 March. 

Wildlife and conservation groups say peat bogs dug up for compost are responsible for 630,000 tonnes of carbon emissions every year.  As such the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Plantlife, Butterfly Conservation, the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, Buglife and Vital Earth are calling on chancellor George Osborne to introduce a peat tax.

RSPB conservation director Mark Avery said: “It’s incredible that a product as environmentally-damaging as peat is still being widely consumed in the UK.

“We have got rid of lead in our petrol, CFCs in aerosols and DDT in the countryside – so why is this dinosaur industry still lumbering along, causing damage to our environment?”

The Government has set a voluntary target to phase peat out by 2020. However, a report by the RSPB claims “it’s not strong enough or quick enough to make a real difference”.