Recycling Tip of the Week

4.12.00pm GMT Tue 5th Jan 2010

Even a small garden has room for a compost heap

The start of another year and at least some improvement in the recycling service offered by our borough council as they continue to bring flats on-stream with the new collection service for plastics and cardboard. Each week we will be posting a "tip of the week", starting off with some fairly obvious strategies but moving on to some of the most inventive recycling done by our councillors, members and supporters. Let your local councillor know of any interesting ways of recycling which you think could be publicised more widely.

Did you know that you can put the following in your garden compost :

Grass cuttings and annual weeds

Twigs, discarded annual plants and flowers

Wood chippings and shredded paper

Uncooked fruit and vegetables, plus peelings, cooked potato jackets (but avoid bread and definitely no meat)

Egg shells, tea leaves and bags, coffee bags, coffee grounds and filter papers

Torn cardboard and paper, including wrapping paper and newspaper

Contents of vacuum cleaner including the bag

Vegetarian pet bedding, food and hair of any kind

Spent flowers, cut flower food and discarded dried flowers

Ash and soot from fires (but avoid clinker and coal)

Tree leaves of any kind (but mow them up off lawns if possible because this helps to break them down before composting)

Generally speaking, smaller the pieces, the quicker your compost will be usable. A whole pineapple for example, will take ages to degrade, but chop it into pieces and it will break down pretty quickly. The more varied the mixture of materials the better. Fresh horse manure is a good organic accelerator - avoid chemical accelerators if you want to stay organic. Turn your compost occasionally and make sure it's not too dry - yes, too dry - and water it if necessary!

More suggestions welcome. The author occasionally puts cooked vegetables into the compost heap as well but it's not recognised practice to do so.