Real nappies reduce waste

It’s fair to say that hard pressed families with children could do with watching the pennies right now, and let’s face it, literally throwing away money is the last thing anyone would want to be doing.  But that’s exactly what parents who use disposable nappies are doing.

The odd tenner here and there on packets of nappies seems like it’s not a major cost, but have you ever actually sat down and added up the full cost of these regular purchases?
 
Well from birth to potty your baby will need about 5,000 nappy changes – so you’re talking about spending around £750 on disposable nappies alone!  So your decision on nappies will have a big impact on your wallet and the planet.  On average during that first two years a baby will produce a tonne of dirty nappies before they’re even potty trained!  And disposable nappies cost you twice, as a taxpayer you pay again to have them landfilled. Now that really adds up!

But it doesn’t have to be that way – you can use modern real washable cotton nappies instead. By using real nappies, you can reduce waste and save money. Of course you have to pay up front to buy the washable nappies and the liners (you can kit your baby out with all the real nappy gear they need from the high street for about £250).  Then you have to consider washing powder and ever rising electricity costs if you’re washing nappies a lot, but even when you factor this in you could still save £400 compared to buying disposables and double that if you re-use the kit again on a second baby.

Analysis of what’s in our bins in Shropshire has shown that disposable nappies make up about 4% of total household waste.  This means an incredible 6,000 tonnes of disposable nappies end up buried in landfill sites in Shropshire every year.
 
So if you want to help tackle this waste mountain and save yourself some money then contact the Real Nappy Advisory Service via their website http://www.goreal.org.uk/

TV recycling in Shropshire

All types of TV's can be recycled in Shropshire simply by taking them to the Council's Recycling Centres.

And its not just TVs they accept any type of display screens for recycling, including:

• Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors
• Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screens
• Plasma screens
• Personal Computer (PC) monitors
• Calculators
• Sat navs
• Laptops

All monitors are taken to Recycling Lives (www.recyclinglives.com) in Lancashire for recycling.  Recycling Lives is a charitable organisation who use recycling to create income to support people in need - literally recycling lives.


From humble beginnings as a small local charity repairing furniture and trading a bit of scrap metal, they have now grown into a large social enterprise and expanded their operations to include a fully licenced TV recycling factory which allows them to safely handle hazardous waste including PC monitors and TV sreens which contain cathode ray tubes.

Once staff in the main area of the recycling centre have removed the plastic and metal components from the units, the remaining screen and mercury-filled fluorescent tubes enter the sealed mercury-safe room.

Did you know almost 99% of the material in the TV can now be recycled, including the glass from the screen and the hard plastics used, almost nothing goes to waste and this is one of the highest / most efficient for any recycling process.

Can I compost cork?

Sometimes when we are out promoting composting with Shropshire Master Composters we get asked can I compost the cork from a wine bottle?



To clarify by this we mean you know a proper old fashioned natural cork, not the plastic ones obviously.  Well the answer is yes because cork is just a type of bark from a tree and so it will ultimately rot down too.  Although we would caution composting alot of them because they will take an incredibly long time to break down, corks are used because they are naturally impermeable - which makes it perfect for plugging a bottle of vino but makes composting a bit tricky.  Chopping the cork up a bit (tricky as this may be) will speed up the decomposition a little but overall in small amounts you can add them in and they do rot eventually and are (eventually) a valuable addition to the finished compost.

Improving soil with compost

Many of us have inherited gardens that are inherently poor for growing plants, whether this is down to the underlying geology of the area or historic management there is a simple way to overcome the challenges of low fertility and poor soil, its simply to add compost.  

Compost improves your soil in a number of ways.  Crucially compost returns nutrients to the soil such as phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, and many trace minerals, all to be released slowly over 1-2 years for optimal plant growth & health.

• Compost is a natural fertilizer that improves soil aeration, tilth & drainage.
• Compost, as a top-dressing, promotes weed control by suppressing growth. Furthermore, improved tilth makes it more difficult for weeds to anchor roots.
• Compost controls erosion by creating good tilth.
• Compost protects plant roots from sun and wind damage.
• Compost conserves water, when used as a mulch: the soil retains moisture beneath it.
• Compost increases water retention when absorbed into loose or sandy soils. It aids drainage in clay or other heavy soils.
• Compost reduces soil diseases because of its high nutrient content.

All in all if you want a healthy garden you need healthy soil and if you want healthy soil you need to compost.  With rising food prices and a crisis of biodiversity around the globe, we need to improve our soils health and so we all need to get more composting going on.  For more information on how to get started with composting visit getcomposting.com

Windfall fruit

As the nights draw in and we enter the season of 'mists and mellow fruitfulness' many of us will find our gardens and driveways carpeted in windfall fruit. 

We have had a few queries of late about this relating to this issue because whilst of course the best thing to do with windfall fruit is a) Eat it! and b) home compost it some folk seem to be unsure about if you can include this with your garden waste for the council collections.

Yes windfall fruit and vegetables from the garden are garden waste not food waste.  So it is perfectly OK to add this to the Councils garden waste collection service.

The confusion seems to have arisen because most garden waste in Shropshire goes for on-farm composting and following the BSE & Foot & Mouth strict Animal Byproduct Regulations were introduced which mean that food waste cannot be composted on farms.
Whilst of course fruit and vegetables are not an animal byproduct, the ban applies to anything from the kitchen so captures all food waste.  The distinction with material from your garden (whether edible or not) is clearly laid out in guidelines produced by the Department for the Environment.  The point at which this would change would be if you brought the items into your kitchen.  Anything which has been in the kitchen, could potentially be cross contaminated with pathogens from other foodstuffs and thus would then be deemed to be kitchen waste which cannot currently be composted on farms due to the Animal Byproduct Regulations.

Hopefully that clears up any confusion? Because looking around my area I can see tonnes of fruit all over the ground right now and I would hate to think that might end up in landfill when it is perfectly OK to compost it with your garden waste.