We had the Compost Stand at Food Gusto last weekend. A good two days with 97 and 98 serious enquiries.
Tomorrow there is a Compost Creatures session at Wigston library starting at 10:30. I understand that
there are a few places available. The Compost Safari moves to Melton library on Friday 1st June.
The photo shows a Compost Safari earlier in the year
We had a busy, and hot dry day, at Food Gusto in Ashby yesterday with 97 enquiries about composting. Worm composting of dog poo was one of the more popular topics and this is covered in detail on the carryoncomposting website. Back on the stand again today (27th May) when we hope to welcome more foodies to the world of composting.
A study by Nicolas Weithmann and colleagues from the University of Bayreuth, Germany investigated the potential of organic fertilizers from biowaste fermentation and composting as an entry path for microplastic particles into the environment.
All samples from plants converting biowaste to fertiliser. (composts, digestates, and percolate-leachates from digestion, which is used as liquid fertilizer) contained plastic particles, but amounts differed significantly with substrate pre-treatment, plant, and waste (for example, household versus commerce)
Composters will be concerned to know that 20-24 pieces of microplastics per kg of dry weight were found in the compost from a composting plant processing biowaste from households with green clippings from the area.
However, the quantity of microplastic present was small when compared with compost produced from supermarket waste which contained 895 pieces >1 mm per kg dry weight.
While waste from the public using the green waste collection system is much more likely to be contaminated than home composted material it does indicate an area of potential concern for those buying compost and for home composters. The advice is that it is better to use loose tea or plastic free teabags. Best advice for the present where plastic teabags cannot be avaoided can be composted despite the fact that the remains of the bag may be added to the soil in the finished compost ( Composting Teabags).
The phot shows the magnified remains of a plastic teabag after composting.
Read more
Rachel Ehrenberg (April 5, 2018). “Microplastics may enter freshwater and soil via compost.” Science News
Reference
Weithmann, N., et al. (2018). “Organic fertilizer as a vehicle for the entry of microplastic into the environment.” Science Advances (published online April 4, 2018).
Further information on plastic in tea bags and composting is available at: www.carryoncomposting.com
Ants nests can be beneficial in a compost heap as they increase the biodiversity by bringing insects and fungi into their nests and their tunnels can assist airflow.
Ants are less welcome in a wormery. They are omnivorous and will not normally harm the worms, but they will compete with the worms for the food. If there are relatively few ants, provided you adding enough food to keep the worms supplied as well as allowing the ants their share it might be acceptable to just ignore the ants and let them co-exist. Allowing the ants to compete for food cause indirect result in the worms becoming malnourished as the ants will compete for sugars and fats in the feedstuff which are essential to the development in of the worms. Not removing the worms also means that when handling the compost your hands and arms are likely get covered with ants and some might take the worm eggs (cocoons) which will impact on the breeding programme.
Where ants have infested a stacking wormery it is possible to remove the trays containing most of the ants and the nest, disturb them using the hand fork and leave them exposed to the light which will further encourage them to leave. It should also be possible to hunt through the nest to find and remove the Queen. (Gloves should be worn) The Queen will be much bigger than the other ants.
It is said that sprinkling cinnamon cause the ants to disperse making it easier to remove the nest.
The consensus is that the presence of an ant’s nest is an indication of dry bedding. Although there are several cases on Internet forums where people state that their moist wormeries have been invaded.
The moisture level can be measure using a meter of estimate by squeezing the compost in the hand ( ) but it is probably safest to assume that the bedding is on the dry side and moisten the it is using a water spray and turn it with a trowel or hand fork to disrupt ant colonies. Continue this process for a few days and most ants will move to a new home.
As ants invade wormeries to gain access to readily available food an invasion may indicate a review of the amount of food provided to ensure that the worms are not being overfed. Too much food left in the wormery may increase the acidity of the bedding which makes it more attractive to ants and less favourable to worms.
Ideally the bedding should be as close to neutral (ph7). If the bedding is acidic many suppliers of wormeries recommend the addition of a small quantity of lime. (which they sell!). Some suppliers recommend treating the wormery with a small handful of lime every month, but this view is not shared by all.
Preventative is better than cure.
Moated wormery
One of the simplest ways of preventing worms occupying the wormery is to surround the wormery, or its legs, with water. With a bin on legs each of the legs can be stood in a dish or a coffee jar of water to which a little washing up liquid has been added to reduce the surface tension. Some recommend the use of mineral oil rather than water.
Sticky Goo
Alternatively, a commercially available ant goo, a sticky substance that is painted around the stems of rose bushes to trap ant can be used this is said to be s. It is eco-friendly and does not contain any insecticide poisons Vaseline can also be smeared round each leg.
These techniques will not only exclude ants but other creeping and crawling creatures as well, so it should only be used where ants are a problem.
The carryoncomposting page on tea bags has been ubdated
The loose tea brewed in a teapot or tea ball can be easily composted. Tea leaves are a good source of Nitrogen (Greens) organic material for the compost bin which will be moistened during the brewing process encouraging decomposition. The tea ball or strainer can be emptied directly into the kitchen caddy while loose leaves can be scooped from the pot into the caddy by hand, once cool.
Teabags are usually listed as compostable items but in recent years more and more composters have complained that the bags do not actually decompose when composted. In 2010 a report by Which? Gardening, found that six out of the seven largest tea bag manufacturers did not make fully compostable bags. This is because at the bags include a non-biodegradable plastic (polypropylene) so that they can be more easily heat-sealed during manufacture. The bags may be described as “70% or 80%” compostable which includes the tea leaves and paper element of the bag but not the plastic.
Although each individual teabag is small they account for about 150 tonnes of polypropylene going to landfill, AD or composting a year in the UK alone. This is equivalent to about 165 million teabags a day. Many of these are composted in food waste.
The COOP announced in January 2018 that it was in the final stages of developing a plastic free biodegradable teabag for its own brand Fairtrade 99 teabags. The Coop which sells 367 million teabags a year hopes to have the new bags in their shops later this year.
PLASTIC-FREE TEA BAGS
Some teabags are already plastic free making the bags ideal for composting. This is list was published in April 2018:
Mike Armitage a gardener from Wrexham started a petition to get manufacturers to remove all plastic from tea bags after finding residue from teabags in his garden compost. Details of the 38 Degrees petition can be found at (https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions). The petition succeeded in persuading the UK's largest tea bag manufacturer Unilever/PG Tips to announce that they will remove plastics from their teabags.
But the other leading UK teabag manufacturers are still using plastics in their teabags, although the following are expected to become plastic-free during 2018
Compostable teabags made of a corn starch (SOILON) are sold by the Brew Tea Company and Teapigs. These will hot compost in about 6-8 weeks around 12 months in a cold composting system.
Pukka Tea teabags are sewn by machine with cotton thread, not heat sealed, and do not contain plastic. The teabag paper is made of a blend of natural abaca (a type of banana) and plant cellulose fibres.
Fruit, herbal and green tea ranges may already use a compostable tea bag material which can be put straight in the compost bin.
Composting Tea bags
Before the current concerns about plastic in teabags the advice when home composting was to use loose leaf tea or if using teabags that did not decomposing during the composting process i.e. non-compostable bags:
I have seen advice recently suggesting that to avoid the risk of the plastic entering the home compost, and eventually the soil, the bag should be emptied by cutting the top off the bag and tipping the tea residue into the kitchen caddy allowing it to be treated as loose tea. Unfortunately, if the empty bag is put into the household (landfill) rubbish bin the plastic will still enter the soil.
Sources: http://moralfibres.co.uk/is-there-plastic-in-your-tea/