Reduce your rubbish

Composting

Reduce air pollution. Instead of burning garden waste reduce your waste by composting.

Compost - the soil bank of the future

Composting is a natural process of decomposition that turns garden and kitchen waste into a fertile, organic soil conditioner. Composting is sometimes referred to as organic recycling. Plants grown in freshly composted soil will flourish and often have more resistance to pests.

Benefits of compost

1. Compost improves soil fertility and texture, and retains moisture and nutrients.
2. It costs little and is easy to make.
3. It reduces the amount of green waste going to landfills. Your garden will require less garden chemicals because compost rich soil grows healthier, more productive plants.

How to make compost

Composting is easy and you can choose a system to suit your lifestyle. You may compost at home, get a garden bag company to collect your garden waste or deliver your garden waste to a composting drop-off point at your local refuse transfer station.

To contact your local garden bag company, look in the Yellow Pages under "Garden Bags & Bins".

Methods and Bins

Compost heaps
These should be about 1 metre square and ½ to 1m high and covered with either old carpet or black polythene to keep in the heat.

Compost bins
Manufactured compost bins are neat, efficient covered containers that fit into a small space. There are a number of different bins available on the market. They are usually manufactured in plastic and all perform well. You may also purchase a wooden slat variety or make one of these yourself from available materials. Contact RENEW for free wooden pallets to make bins.

Three bin method
This is good for large gardens and usually consists of a large wood slat bin divided into three compartments. The compost is turned from one bin to the next every four to six weeks and should be ready for use by the end of that period. The process of turning keeps the product aerated and well mixed.

Rotating drum
Achieves the turning process and makes excellent compost. Once the process has begun it is preferable not to add any more to the mix but wait the fourteen days for maturation and then begin again. This method is not usually used for food waste.

Trenching
A method often used in large gardens or farms and basically means that you bury the garden or food waste. Dig a trench and fill it in sections, covering with a good amount soil after each addition. Plant out on top.

Where to put your bin

Except for the rotating bin, all compost bins should be bottomless and placed on the bare ground in a sunny spot. The heap works best in a warm, moist location.

What you include in your bin

You will need a variety of materials which occur naturally in your garden or come from the kitchen. They are called "Greens" and "Browns":

• Greens - are nitrogen rich wastes like kitchen food scraps, fruit peels, coffee grounds and tea bags, grass and plant clippings, hair, animal fur, blood and bone, seaweed, fish bones and chopped weeds (except for Onion Weed, Wandering Jew and Oxalis).
• Browns - are high in carbon and other elements. These may be dried leaves, sawdust, wood shavings, hay, peat, vacuum cleaner dust, shredded paper, and newspaper, eggshells and crushed seashells, coal ash, wood ash (untreated). Chicken manure, blood and bone.

What to leave out of your bin

Meat, grease, fat, dairy products, large bones, food packaging, plastics, wood products, pest plants, and underground stems for example kikuyu grass stems. Cat and dog faeces are not recommended in large amounts. They may create an odour problem and there is very little nutrient in them.

Caring for your compost

Your compost bin or heap is not a dump! The main ingredients for good compost are a good mix of materials, including greens like lawn clippings to produce heat, moisture, and air.

• Chop or shred garden waste up into smaller pieces and mix with other ingredients in the bin.
• Turn your heap or the contents of the bin. After it heats up and cools down, turn to mix the ingredients. The heat destroys the weeds and seeds. You may turn it into another un-layered heap or bin if you have one or just stir up the contents of your existing bin.
• Keep moist, but don't drown your compost.
• Cover your heap or bin in heavy rain.

When is your compost ready?

Ideally the finished product should look like potting mix. However, it will not matter if it isn?t perfect. As long as most of the material is broken down (egg shells will not completely disappear) and you have material with a soil like structure, your compost is ready to add to your garden.

Your composting options

The choice is yours whether you live in a flat with no garden, have a large garden, a large or small family there is an option for you to dispose of your kitchen and garden waste. Even if you hate gardening and don't want to compost you can still take your garden waste to a transfer station or have it collected by a commercial company.

Some information is available in our publication: