A brief guide to Home Composting

Why should we compost waste at home?

A staggering 80% of the rubbish we throw away in our dustbins could be recycled or reused! Upto 40% of that rubbish is garden and kitchen waste that could be kept at home and composted. A further 40% is made up of glass, paper, cans and textiles which can be easily recycled in your kerbside bags and boxes, or at bottle banks and household waste sites. The last 20% is rubbish that cannot be easily recycled. All the rubbish we throw away in our dustbins is collected and transported to disposal sites where it is 'disposed of' so it makes sense to remove the useful stuff before that happens. In Worcestershire most of our household rubbish is buried in landfill tips.

So composting our waste at home means considerably less rubbish has to be collected and transported to disposal sites. This results in lower transportation costs, lower use of non renewable fuel, less pollution, fewer lorries on our roads, less pollution from waste tips and means that our requirements for landfill sites will be reduced.

What are the options?

• Compost bins and heaps - take garden waste and uncooked vegetable and fruit scraps from the kitchen and can produce a compost and mulch useful in the garden.
• Wormeries - take cooked and uncooked vegetable and fruit scraps and some small amounts of meat scraps. They produce fine compost and a liquid plant feed that can be used to feed pot plants and hanging baskets.
• Digesters (Green Cone)- take all kitchen scraps and plate scrappings, uncooked or cooked, including meat, fish, bones, dairy products and fruit and vegetable remains. Digesters do not produce any compost, they simply provide a way to dispose of kitchen scraps without putting them in the dustbin by turning them into water, carbon dioxide and nutrients.

Whats the best option for me?

It depends on the materials you have available, the size of your garden, the number of people in your household, the time you have available and what you want to get out of composting.

If you want to produce a general purpose mulch or compost to use in your garden, you need to have a good amount of mixed garden waste available throughout the year and a fair sized compost bin or heap (a cubic meter is about the right size). Try a wooden framed heap or a large 300+litre compost bin. If you don't have a big garden, or most of your garden is grassed, you might struggle to make good quantities of compost. You could try a smaller 220 litre compost bin, and fill it up slowly and add shredded or scrunched up paper to the mix. More information about compost bins.

A good option if you grow houseplants or lots of greenhouse plants is to use a wormery. After a short settling in period, your worms will make a nutrient rich liquid that can be diluted and used to feed your plants. They also produce a fine compost which can be used for many purposes in the greenhouse or potting shed. More information about wormeries.

If you are more concerened with disposing of food waste from your kitchen including meat and bones, then a digester might be useful. Remember you don't get an end product from a digester (apart from satisfaction!). Digesters like the Green Cone can handle food waste  from a family of four or five without problems. More information about digesters.