31/07/2013 - Permalink

Get composting this summer

Related topics: Community / Leisure, culture and heritage

With hot summer weather set to continue, Shropshire Council and their waste contractor Veolia are urging residents to get composting.

Right now is the perfect time to compost at home because the weather means we’re spending more time in our gardens, and the summer is the peak season for creating garden waste.

The hot weather also speeds up the composting process so you can get through more waste more quickly at this time of year.

People can get composting by taking advantage of a special buy-one-get-one-half-price deal on home composting bins, plus wormeries and water butts, through the getcomposting.com website.

Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member responsible for waste management, said:

“Composting waste is kinder to the environment than throwing it in the general waste bin, but it also helps to save taxpayers’ money by reducing the need to collect and treat so much waste.”

Top tips for summer compost

  • Don’t just try composting grass cuttings on their own or you get a sweaty pile of mush.   To make good compost you need to add a balanced mixture of moist nitrogen rich material like grass cuttings, tea bags and food waste and drier carbon-rich material like straw, hay, cardboard and shredded paper.
  • If you want to get your heap even hotter it’s about stimulating the bacteria who create the heat. One way to waken your bugs is to stir up your compost heap and turn it over with garden fork.  Another idea is to feed it lots of nitrogen-rich material like nettles or grass cuttings.
  • You shouldn’t need to, but if you find your compost heap dries out too much simply pour on some water to help keep it nice and moist to aid the decomposing processes.