Compost Awareness Week 2012

Compost Awareness Week 2012

6th-12th May

Compost Cottage

This year Garden Organic are running TWO competitions to raise awareness of the benefits of composting your organic waste and using compost in the garden.Firstly a poster competition; be imaginative and creative to produce an A4 sized poster which advertises compost awareness week and the painted bin competition.
Secondly a painted bin competition; hold your own competition amongst friends, family, community groups, allotment associations or schools.  Be creative and make sure you send us a picture of your bin.

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Entry to both competitions is open to all ages and abilities.  Please send entries either by email or post to the address below stating your name, age, address and contact telephone number (include school/organisation if sending as a group).

Deadlines for entry to the competitions are 31st March for the Poster Competition and 12th May for the Painted Bin Competition.  Garden Organic experts along with a team of Master Composters will judge entries to both competitions.
Prizes will be awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in both competitions.

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To enter by post send entries to : Composting Competition, Sustainable Waste Team, Garden Organic, Ryton, Coventry, CV8 3LG.

To enter by email send Pdf posters and jpeg images where possible to : dgarrett@gardenorganic.org.uk

Good Luck!

Volunteers clean up in South Shropshire

Craven Arms Volunteers for the Environment (CAVE) arranged to pick up litter around Craven Arms as part of the national Big Tidy Up campaign on Monday 16 April 2012.

In total five bags of litter were collected from around the town, including glass bottles (which were recycled), lots of discarded cigarettes and even a trainer.
The Big Tidy Up campaign is a national initiative encouraging residents, voluntary groups and organisations to carry out litter picks in their area.  For further information on the Big Tidy Up campaign visit their website at www.thebigtidyup.org. 

CAVE are a group of local volunteers who undertake various seasonal tasks around the town to care for the local environment and keep Craven Arms neat and tidy. 

If you would like to be kept informed of opportunities to volunteer with CAVE, please contact Merinda Essex, group leader, by emailing merindaessex@yahoo.co.uk.

Easter 2012 waste collections

Dont forget that all your refuse, recycling and garden waste collections are changing due to the Easter Bank Holidays.

However, no waste collections will take place on Easter Monday (Monday 9 April 2012), and throughout that week collections will take place a day later than normal.

All crews are working as normal on Good Friday (Friday 6 April 2012), so there will no changes to that collection.

To check your dates there is a handy app on www.shropshire.gov.uk/binday

Our ever declining forests

I came across this on the internet and I really like it! It puts things in perspective hey!! There's a good message there too. If we all recycle more paper we can help in a small way both with deforestation and climate change. 

Spring into Composting

As sunny spring has sprung we are reminding residents about the benefits of home composting.

Spring is when the garden starts to wake up and is a busy time for gardeners to prepare the garden, for blooming flowers, lushious lawns and scrumptious fruit and vegetables. This means that there is much more green waste being generated at this time of year.


So to help reduce your waste and minimise your carbon footprint why not compost your garden waste at home? You can save yourself some money by saving a trip to the tip and avoiding the need to buy shop bought compost for the garden by making your own for free.


To help encourage more home composting we are offering residents reduced prices on compost bins. For details visit www.shropshire.gov.uk/compost


Did you know? By weight garden waste represents about 25% of all household waste in the UK; food waste represents about 20%. So especially if you also add in other materials like paper, wood ash, hoover dust, natural textiles and cardboard, you could more than halve the amount of waste your produce just by home composting!

Volunteers transform school garden

On Saturday 4th February 2012 - volunteers from the Shropshire Walled Garden Project were joined by fifteen volunteers from the local RAF station (Cosford) for a day of volunteer gardening at Sherrifhales Primary School near Bridgnorth.  

Everyone worked tirelessly throughout the day to clear and make good the schools growing and forest school areas.  Further work will be carried out by on the site in a few months time as part of what will be a new partnership with the RAF.

Compost this Mothers Day 2012

This Mother’s Day (Sunday 18th March 2012) its time to spoil your mum - but you dont have to spoil mother earth at the same time.

So remember that if they are showering their mums with gifts, then dont forget to think about the waste that can result from this.  Any organic waste from all those extra treats could make excellent ingredients for a your garden compost heap. Fruit and vegetable peelings from that special dinner; tea bags from her breakfast in bed, and cardboard boxes from her chocolates - all of these can be composted at home to make a wonderful free soil improver to treat your garden too.  

And once that special day is over you can even compost cut flowers once they have past their best and also cards and envelopes from her Mothers Day card are great for making compost too. You could even offer as a special treat for mum to do the housework and run the hoover round the house and then the vaccuum cleaner dust makes an excellent addition to a home compost heap.

Home composting has 'heaps' of benefits for the environment too. Not only does it help keep waste out of landfill but it also reduces the need for waste collection and saves the environmental impact of buying in so many garden products too.

To make it even easier for people to get into the home composting habit, there are special offers available for cut-price compost bins to residents in Shropshire (& Telford & Wrekin). For more details go www.shropshire.gov.uk/compost