Leaf litter

 

The Environment Agency are again causing concern in the commercial composting world, this time they are targeting all the leaf litter which councils sweep up off the road and send for commercial composting.  The Agency has done some trials which lead to concerns about levels of nickel, copper, chromium, molybdenum, zinc and hydrocarbons found in this material - mostly this is from car exhaust emissions.

Its a frustration for alot of people in the industry who have successfully been adding this material to their compost for years and still producing high quality compost.  Not only do these leaves make good compost but over the autumn and winter when tonnages of garden waste are lower they help keep commercial composting facilities going and provide crucial ongoing work and cashflow during these seasonal lulls. 

More trials are being planned but for now the Agency are recommending that this material is not composted which in the worst case scenario could lead to hundreds of thousands of tonnes of extra waste having to be sent to landfill across the UK.

It seems to us at Shropshire Master Composters that the Agency is being over-regulatory and that the response is not proportional to the actual risk involved. The good news is that on the horizon in a new EU standard on composting which is actually must less strigent that the UK rules which once adopted across the EU will allow British composting businesses to continue to produce high quality compost but to the much less taxing European standard which will help protect British jobs and keep more waste out of landfill.

Of course it should be highlighted that the Agency doesn’t regulate domestic compost heaps, thankfully, so this doesn’t effect most of us, but for local Councils and composters this is a really bad piece of news.  We have all been adding leaves to our compost heaps for years with no adverse affect - even when these leaves are cleared from driveways and roadsides or from the garden and we shall continue to do so!