Council Incentive To Help ‘Cool The Climate’ By Home Composting
Council Incentive To Help ‘Cool The Climate’ By Home Composting
Central Bedfordshire Council is asking residents to help ‘cool the climate’ by composting at home during the nineteenth annual international Compost Awareness Week, which is being held from 5th to 11th May 2019.
Composting is an inexpensive, natural process that transforms kitchen and garden waste into a valuable and nutrient-rich food for any garden. It’s both easy to make and use. By home composting, carbon captured by plants from the atmosphere is returned to the soil which helps maintain moisture levels, adds nutrients, improve the soil’s workability, and helps reduce the release of nitrous oxide. It also is a great way of recycling items that may otherwise be thrown away in the bin.
Ian McMurdy, Waste Awareness Officer at Central Bedfordshire Council, said: “Many people don’t realise that a third of their household black bin is made up of organic waste that could be turned into compost. Although many households already compost at home, we want more residents to get involved. By recycling this organic waste at home in your compost bin, the same waste breaks down in an environmentally-friendly way and can be used to keep your garden green and looking fantastic.”
For those wanting to try home composting, now is the ideal time to get started. Residents can purchase discounted 220 litre compost converter from as little as £13.50 and the council has negotiated a fantastic ‘buy one, get one half price’ offer, so residents can purchase another for only £6.75, plus a £5.99 delivery charge.
For further information about all the compost bins and accessories, call 0844 571 444 and quote reference CBC30L. Alternatively, you can order your home compost bin and composting accessories online at www.cbc.getcomposting.com.
To get green-fingered and find out how easy home composting is, follow these five step-by-step top tips:
1. Find the right site – Ideally place your compost bin in a reasonably sunny site on bare soil. If you have to put it on concrete or patio slabs, ensure there’s a layer of paper, twigs or existing compost at the bottom.
2. Add the right ingredients – There are loads of things from your home and garden you can add to enrich your compost.
‘Greens’ (nitrogen-rich): tea bags, grass cuttings, vegetable peelings, fruit scraps, coffee grounds and nettles.
‘Browns’ (carbon-rich): egg shells, cereal boxes, newspaper, garden prunings, tissues and paper, hay and straw.
But remember to keep these things OUT: meat, fish, cooked food, dairy products, diseased plants, nappies and perennial weeds.
3. Fill it up and wait a while – A 50/50 mix of ‘greens’ and ‘browns’ is the perfect recipe for good compost. It takes between nine and twelve months for your compost to become ready to use, so now all you need to do is wait and let nature do the work. Keep on adding greens and browns to top up your compost and give the occasional stir.
4. Ready to use – you’ll know your compost is ready to use when your compost has turned into a crumbly, dark material, resembling thick, moist soil and gives off an earthy, fresh aroma. Lift the bin slightly or open the hatch at the bottom of your compost bin and scoop out the fresh compost with a garden fork, spade or trowel.
5. Use it – Don’t worry if your compost looks a little lumpy with twigs and bits of eggshell; this is perfectly normal. Use it to enrich borders and vegetable patches, plant up patio containers or feed the lawn.
For more information about composting and the subsidised compost bin offer, visit www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/recycling
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Council Incentive To Help ‘Cool The Climate’ By Home Composting
Council Incentive To Help ‘Cool The Climate’ By Home Composting