To celebrate Food Waste week Stokeswood Allotments in Leicester held a Food Composting workshop on Wednesday 9 th March. The session was held to spread the word that cooked food can be composted at home, despite the oft repeated veiw that it cannot, and to look at the various options open to householders.  The cheapest option for those with a conventional dalek bin such as those purchased through subsidised  schemes  is to buy two Bokashi bins, available for less than £25, and ferment the waste to produce pre-compost which can then be added to the dalek bin or buried.  The participants also looked at the use of the Green Cone food digestor and dual purpose mid-range compost bins such as the Green Johanna, Aerobin and Hotbin as well as the smallest Joraform model. As some of the group were involved with community composting the Ridan continous throughput composter was also discussed as was some of the  Biolan models.

The group also had a chance try a range of compost aerators to aerate and mix compost in some of the  bins.

It is hopes to repeat the session on a Saturday to allow more people  to attend.  

The photo shows some of those attending the session

Food Waste and Greenhouse Gases

Wasted food accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions globally than all the commercial air flights each year. The  discarded food often ends up in landfills, releasing methane when if breaks down, a greenhouse gas that is more than twenty-five times more potent than carbon dioxide.

If food loss were a country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the US. 

Every bit of leftover food has an environmental impact. And while governments and businesses have an important part to play in reducing waste, food waste from UK households produces approximately  25million tonnes of CO₂ every year. The chart shows types  household waste. There is no proze for identifying that which can be composted. 

Food Composting at home

Making compost instead of throwing out organic materials can help reduce waste sent to landfill as well as reducing amount of harmful methane released into the atmosphere, it also saves  “road miles!” as councils do not need to collect the waste and take it to landfill, AD plants or incinerators.

Food composting can be used at all consumer levels, from restaurants pubs down to  households.

Individuals can easily compost a wide range of waste food  including raw fruits, vegetables, fruit, grains,  coffee filters and tea bags and eggshells

Importantly, and contrary to some information,   cooked food  such as meats, fish, plate scrapings,  bread and dairy products, can be composted  and home and school with the right techniques and bins e.g.

Composting can help enrich soil by retaining moisture and suppress plant diseases and pests, encourage beneficial bacteria and fungi that break down organic matter to create humus, a rich nutrient-filled material, as well as lowering the demand for chemical fertilisers,

Free Workshop

This free morning workshop at Stokeswood allotment, Leicester  on 9^th March will give participants the chance to look at methods of composting food waste at home. Details and application form from http://www.carryoncomposting.com/   (Follow the link Composting)

 or email carryoncomposting1@gmail.com 

The www.carryoncomposting.com Perennial Weeds section  on dealing with perennial weeds  when composting has been modified to include further details on depriving weeds of light as a means of killing them. The section uses a case study where wheelie bins full of weeds where left in an allotnent site car park.  A weed mound, similar to a turf pile,  was used to deal with the weeds  with thew minimum of effort. 

Action to protect the worlds peatlands is more important than ever. Peatlands store twice as much carbon as the  world’s forests and in  the UK, peatlands hold more than three billion tonnes of carbon. Peatlands play a significant  role in reducing flooding.

As well as the extraction of peat for use in the garden trade, these areas are under threat from draining,  overgrazing,  and burning of the heather on grouse shooting estates.

Peat has been a staple ingredient of composts sold in British garden centres since the 1960s, having good water and air retention and being light to transport and relatively easy to extract by destroying peatbogs. By 2011 about  58%  of compost brought by home  gardeners was peat.

A consultation on proposals to phase out the horticultural use of peat (including ‘grow bags and multi-purpose compost) by amateur gardeners in England by 2020 was published  by DEFRA. The  Natural Environment Minister at the time said “The horticultural industry has made real progress in reducing peat use, but I want to see peat eliminated from the amateur gardener market by 2020. We need to go further if we are to protect our natural environment and reduce greenhouse gas emissions”.

DEFA subsequently announced binding targets under the 2018 25-year environmental plan to phase out peat for garden use by 2020 and use by commercial nurseries by 2030

Obviously as with most environmental statements there was a slight difference between the press publicity and what actually  happened as anyone buying any of the wide range of peat-based composts from garden centres in 2020 and  2021. In fact  peat still accounted for around 35% of all compost sales .

So, there was  obviously a need for another press release announcing new targets  the government has now said that sales of peat compost to amateur gardeners will be banned from 2024. Do not hold your breath.

However, as a gardener can make a difference:  only buy peat free composts (the new ones are much improved)  and  make your own compost from  household, kitchen and garden waste.

If you have an allotment or a community garden  work together to compost the waste from the site.

Buckingham Garden Centre have published the latest in their  Dig It podcasts  series presented Chris Day and Peter Brown.

In this  session  Peter and Chris chat with Rod Weston of Carry on Composting looking at the  composting process, approaches to ensure good  composting results and composting where space is limited. We also look at the wider issues surrounding bagged compost products, and how Buckingham Garden Centre tackles composting, and the benefits compost brings to the garden.

Listern to the podcast on the Buckingham Garden centre  website

https://www.buckinghamgardencentre.co.uk/podcasts.html#.YguOppanyUk

or on  Spotify, Acast, Castbox, Apple podcasts etc  

 https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hY2FzdC5jb20vcHVibGljL3Nob3dzLzYwNzliYmUwYWQ1ZTA1MjQxYzhmNTNmNA/episode/NjIwYTYzNTQyZDVjYmUwMDEyNzgzNmJk?sa=X&ved=0CAgQuIEEahcKEwiQyc37zYH2AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQLA