Top tips: how to create your own compost
Having a mini ‘tip’ in your garden might not sound too appealing but home composting has lots of benefits. Our Environmental Services Assistant Alex has the scoop.
Home composting is a great way to keep your garden clippings and your kitchen food waste from going in the bin. You can put in all kinds of items in there including tea bags, coffee grounds, ripped up cardboard, tissues, garden clippings, flowers, fruit peelings and eggshells.
It’s one of the best ways to reduce the amount of waste we produce and lessen carbon emissions.
By converting your kitchen and garden waste into compost you will not only reduce the amount of material you’re putting into your household bin, but as a bonus you will also cut the amount of methane and carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere – significant greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Composting is nature’s own way of recycling!
The end product is also a great nutrition feed for your garden and plants and a soil improver!
Some of the things you CAN add to your compost bin include:
Greens:
- Old flowers
- House plants
- Nettles
- Coffee grounds & filter paper
- Tea bags and tea leaves
- Spent bedding plants
- Fruit scraps and peels
- Veg scraps and peelings
Browns:
- Egg shells and boxes
- Cereal boxes
- Newspaper
- Toilet & kitchen roll tubes
- Garden prunings
- Dry leaves
- Twigs
- Hedge clippings
- Straw & hay
- Wool
- Feathers
- Woody clippings
- Cotton threads
- Tumble dryer lint
- Tissues, paper towels & napkins
- Shredded documents
- Corn cobs & stalks
- Pine needles & cones
For a full guide on how to compost at home visit Recycle Now, which offers advice on how to set up your composter and make the best compost.
Compost bins even make great gifts for people who are wanting to cut back on their bin waste or improve the environment!
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