Get composting this Easter!

 

Residents across Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin still have time to buy a discounted compost bin, before a price increase comes in at the start of April.

Spring is an excellent time for composting. With new shoots appearing, it’s time to clear out winters deadwood from planters and flower beds and a compost bin is a great way to recycle this decaying vegetation. Over time it will break down to produce rich nutritious compost that that will put some life back into the garden.

Despite the cold start, Easter is almost upon us and is traditionally the time when gardeners venture out and lay the foundations for the promise of warmer weather, a flower filled garden and home grown veg and salad.

The cheapest compost bin currently on offer through the Council Scheme still costs just £16 but there is also a ‘Buy One Get One Half Price’ offer, so you can get a second one for just £8 adding extra value to residents with larger gardens or those who team up with a friend or neighbour to buy a bin.  Compost bins and accessories can be ordered online via: www.getcomposting.com or by calling tel: 0844 571 4444

Spring into composting

Home composting is great for gardens as it produces nutritious, free compost, which can be used to enrich flower beds, vegetable plots, patio planters and hanging baskets. It’s also good for the environment as it reduces the amount of household and garden waste being sent to landfill.

 

At least 30% of what goes into household bins can be home composted, including some uncooked kitchen scraps (including banana skins, apple cores and vegetable peelings), teabags, crushed eggshells, vaccum cleaner dust, scrunched up paper and cardboard.

A big garden is not needed in order to get composting at home. There are a range of options available, so anyone with a little bit of outdoor space should be able to give it a go.

Across Shropshire & Telford there are special prices starting at just £16, and if you buy two the second one is half price! Buy on line direct from www.shropshire.getcomposting.com 

Composting at Tickwood Farm in Much Wenlock

Shropshire Council and their contractors, Veolia Environmental Services, have kindly donated a compost bin to Tickwood Farm, for use by the pupils from Severndale Specialist School in Monkmoor Shrewsbury.

The school was established in September 1995 following the reorganisation of provision for children with special educational needs in Shropshire.  The farm has a walled garden which is dedicated to the School to use, the school has two horticultural teams of pupils who attend the garden every week.

They are working on a project to grow their own fruit and vegetables. They plan to cook their produce to make healthy meals, and to sell the produce to allow them to raise funds to carry on the project next year. The project also enables the pupils to obtain a City & Guilds qualification in Horticulture.

This will give the pupils, on leaving School, a head start, to venture into the world of employment, as only 5% of young adults with learning difficulties are employed for work in this present climate. 

The compost bins will help make the garden more sustainable by transforming garden waste into a valuable soil improver which can then be used on the growing areas to improve crop yields as well as helping to educate the pupils about waste management and the environment.

Master Composters teaching children to waste less

Master composters are starting even younger in Whixall in North Shropshire.

The children from Whixall Nursery School were fed up of throwing away their food waste and garden waste, so they decided they wanted to do something about it. The teachers and children came up with an idea to recycle their garden waste and food waste by composting it on site.  

They decided to contact Waste Managers at Shropshire Council to find out what they could do. Shropshire Council works closely with volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters and their contractors Veolia Environmental Services to encourage schools to be more sustainable and wherever possible to compost their organic waste on site to reduce the need for waste collection and treatment.

Now Veolia have kindly donated two compost bins to the nursery school. When the compost bins were delivered, the children couldn’t wait to put their garden and food waste in their new compost bin. They had saved up the first batch of food waste for recycling just that morning.

Volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters are now running environmental education classes for the children and the teachers to help them master the art of composting and get the most out of their new bins.  They are also taking along some tomato plants to encourage the children to try growing their own as well.

By working together we are helping to reduce the amount of waste that is being created in Shropshire as well as inspiring the next generation to grow up to be committed composters.

FREE environmental education sessions for schools

Many of us volunteers work with our local schools to get them set up with compost heaps and sometimes we also offer help for gardening clubs with growing schemes and such like.  Recently we have benefited from Severn Trent Water also offering help with environmental education programmes, this is a great link because it links to the gardening in particular but also they offer tours of their sewage treatment works for schools which is a (sort of) composting process with the aerobic settling tanks ultimately creating a sludgely product which gets spread on the land.  They also have anaerobic digestors at some of their sites which interests some of us composters too.  Its great to big companies doing their bit and very helpful for us when we are working in schools to know that there is other support out there too back up the waste prevention message too.

 

Shrewsbury town centre promotion

This week volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters joined staff from the Council to help promote waste minimisation in Shrewsbury town centre.  We spoke to over 100 people over the course of the day and each person was given three leaflets, one about how to donate old furniture about how to stop getting junk mail by signing up to the Mail Preference Service and one about how to buy a cheap compost bin.  

Hopefully some of them will go home inspired to take action to reduce the amount of waste they produce which ultimately helps saves money and the planet!

Plasterboard recycling in Shropshire

Did you know that plasterboard can be recycled at all of the main Council Household Recycling Centres (HRCs) (aka "the tip") in Shropshire.




They accept:  -

- Gypsum blocks

- Virgin gypsum board cut-offs

- Left-over plaster of paris

- Complete plasterboards or broken parts

- Gypsum ceilings, floors or walls


It does not matter if there are nails, screws or wallpaper on the boards - this is removed during the reprocessing and the gypsum from within the plasterboard can be recovered.

All the plasterboard from Shropshire get taken to Kent for recycling. The boards are made up of 96% gypsum, all of which can be recycled. Gypsum is a very valuable mineral which can be used to make more plasterboard, used in construction materials or applied to agricultural land as a fertiliser. 

It is estimated that around 300,000 tonnes of plasterboard gets sent to landfill in the UK each year. Not only does recycling help reduce waste to landfill, but by recycling plasterboard you are reducing the need for more gypsum to be mined, thus helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Carrier bags - material matters

All types of carrier bag, whether made from plastic, paper or jute, will have some impact on the environment during the manufacturing process, transportation and ultimate disposal. The best way to reduce their carbon footprint is to not use carrier bags at all if you can and to simply re-use them as many times as possible and then recycle them at the end of their useful life.

Plastic carrier bags

While plastic carrier bags are efficient and use 70% less plastic than they did 20 years ago, they are still made from polyethylene (PE) which is derived from non-renewable oil and require energy to manufacture.

Plastic bags are recyclable and are increasingly being recycled by the supermarkets, but the majority still end up in landfill where they may take hundreds of years to break down.  Increasing the recycled content of new plastic bags is a way of using fewer natural resources and reduces their impact on the environment.

Degradable PE carrier bags

There are a number of retailers who provide ‘degradable’ PE carrier bags, (also known as ‘oxy-degradable’ or ‘UV degradable’). Degradable bags are made from oil-derived PE but also contain a special additive that causes the plastic to degrade by oxidation and exposure to light and heat.

The bags initially fragment then undergo biodegradation which reduces the material to water, CO2, biomass and trace elements. The bags may take between 18 months to four years to disappear depending on conditions and are unlikely to fully degrade in landfill sites, but will not release methane either.

Biodegradable carrier bags

These bags are not so commonly used by retailers as they are less strong for the same gauge of material. They are made from renewable crop-derived sources (e.g. corn starch).  They are usually designed to biodegrade in aerobic industrial composting conditions and may conform to EN 13432. They may be compostable in home composting conditions but there is no UK standard for home compostability at present.

Paper bags

While paper carrier bags are from a renewable source and are biodegradable, compostable and recyclable, they require significantly more energy to manufacture and transport than plastic bags and normally have limited re-use ability.  If disposed of in landfill, they are likely to degrade and release methane.

 

Natural materials

Jute and cotton are made from plants which need a lot of water and fertiliser to grow and energy to harvest and process into bags.  They encourage re-use, and can be reprocessed at the end of their useful life as, for example, blankets used by removal companies.   If disposed of in landfill, they are likely to degrade and release methane.
 

Freegle in Shropshire

 
Having a clear out? Well check out Freegle a fantastic website which links people who want to get rid of stuff and people who are looking for stuff together - kind of like an online dating agency for junk! There's 23,000 members online across Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin!
 
Freegle (short for Freely Given, Locally, Easily) is a not-for-profit community website run with local volunteers from Shropshire to allow you to get rid of unwanted items. You simply advertise stuff as free to a good home and people will email you and arrange to come and collect it for free.  This grassroots and entirely non-profit movement means people are giving (and getting) stuff for free all over Shropshire with specific groups for Shrewsbury, Oswestry, Market Drayton, Ludlow, Telford, Bishops Castle and beyond.

So if you're having a clear out and planning on hiring a skip or throwing something away? STOP! Please offer your reusable items to Freegle members and keep it out of landfill by pre-cycling it.  You can advertise anything you like for free from old furniture to car parts and old toys, soil and rubble to old kitchen units, literally anything and everything - including the kitchen sink. So why not save yourself a trip to the tip and just give it away, free, locally and easily via www.freegle.org.uk

To find Freegle groups in other areas please vist www.ilovefreegle.org/groups

Wormery FAQs

Here are some FAQ's on getting the best out of your Wormery...




Q: What foodstuffs should I avoid putting into the Wormery?


A: Whilst worms will eat meat and fish, we generally advise against it as it can get smelly quickly.  You should though avoid using acidic foods such as citrus fruits.  Other than that, pretty much all of your cooked and uncooked food waste can be added straight into a Wormery.


Q: My wormery produces so much rich black liquid, I dont know what to do with it?

A: You can keep adding it to your garden, just water it down 10:1 first. If you dont want it, give it away - it's one of the best organic feeds out there I guarentee most allotment groups will gladly take the stuff off your hands. 

Q: My wormery is going all soggy and wet?


A: If the Wormery gets water logged, then this can cause problems for the worms. If the waste is looking wet then simply shred up some paper or cardboard and mix this thoroughly in.  This will soak up the excess moisture and help aerate the material to keep your wormery healthy.
  Q: I have zillions of tiny flies in the top of my wormery.  Can I get rid of them?

A. Add lime mix and / or torn up cardboard to help reduce the acidity.

Q: Can you put pet hair in the wormery?

A: Yep, you most definitely can and you can put in human hair too.

Q. How much of my food waste will my Wormery cope with?


This will vary according to the size and capacity of the Wormery. The shop bought wormeries are sized appropriately to manage most of the food waste produced by a 'typical' family.

Q: How long does it take for the liquid feed to start coming through?


A: Typically within 10 - 12 weeks depending on the amount and type of food you're putting in and the time of year (or rather prevailing weather and temperature). Once the liquid starts to come through you should tap it off every fortnight, or I just leave the tap on with a plastic bottle underneath to catch the liquor.

Q: Do I need to dilute the liquid feed?


A: Yes, make sure you water it down with 10 parts water to one part worm juice.  If you put the  pure worm juice on plants it will do more harm than good as its very strong.

Its a breeze to freeze

 
Shoppers at Shrewsburys Darwin Shopping Centre recently discovered how to become freezer experts at our Love Food Hate Waste roadshows.  Several volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters took turns over the day along with staff from the local Council to run a public exhibition focusing on food waste reduction.  

Local residents were able to pick up top tips about how to reduce food waste by making the most of their freezers. It was really interesting to chat to local people about the variety of foods that can be frozen.

Freezers can be used to store tasty home cooked meals, leftovers and preserve food that’s reaching its use-by date. So why not try some of our frosty freezer tips:

• You can freeze foods right up to the end of the use-by date.
• Cook once, eat twice – make double portions of things like lasagne and bolognaise sauce so that you can eat one and freeze one for another meal.
• You can freeze a wide range of foods including things like cheese and milk which many people assume cannot be frozen.  
• Visit your freezer often and keep tabs on what’s inside.

For more hints on using your freezer to reduce food waste visit  http://england.lovefoodhatewaste.com/node/3603

The Rubbish Diet comes to Shropshire

Following their success in the NESTA Waste Innovation Challenge some volunteers from Shrewsbury are organising a "weight watchers" style approach to get people throwing away less rubbish.

The idea is to encourage people to recycle more and waste less through peer to peer support and cascade learning. Its based on the ideas of national waste guru Karen Cannard who runs The Rubbish Diet. And they are now looking to recruit 100 volunteers across Shropshire who want to save money and go green by putting their bin on a diet.

The idea is to monitor what you are throwing away for six weeks, with a diary and also actually weighing your waste (scales can be provided) so you can track progress and compare with others in the group. Full support will be provided and you have a group to exchange hints and tips with (so it really is just like weightwatchers for your bin!)

Every week they you set a challenge: Finding out what you can recycle where; Shopping with waste in mind; Reducing food waste; Home composting; Ditching the disposables; Declutter week; all building up to a big weigh off in the end with volunteers attempting to strive for a Zero Waste Week.

By signing up to the Rubbish Diet you can save yourself money and help to reduce the amount of rubbish which gets landfilled in Shropshire. To get involved simply contact Alison Thomas via alison.thomas08@gmail.com or call 07972 858313