Composting at home

Reduce your waste by a third

Vegetable peelings, prunings, paper and a list of other things from your kitchen and garden will decompose easily and naturally in a compost bin, leaving you less waste to bag up and put out for collection and further processing.

About a third of your waste can be composted at home, saving energy and resources and benefiting your garden and your pocket.

In your compost bin this biodegradable waste can be broken down into convenient, free compost very easily by useful insects and micro-organisms – but if this waste reaches a landfill site, mixed with and buried under other rubbish, little air would be available to support the micro-organisms that could have flourished in your compost bin.

Where can I get a compost bin?

Most local authorities provide discounted bins. Contact your council for more information.

How do I start?

Put a compost bin anywhere that is convenient, perhaps easily accessible from the kitchen, and start filling it.

 

Tips - Location:

A compost heap is best sited on soil (worms and creepy crawlies will find it easily) but will work on concrete, providing there is some drainage.

Keep a handy container in the kitchen for your kitchen waste, to reduce the amount of trips you take to the bin.

What should I put into my bin?

Your bin needs a mix of things that rot at different speeds – no sorting required.

Fast Rotters

Slow Rotters

What Shouldn’t I Compost

Fruit waste

Woody prunings

Meat/fish/bones

Raw vegetable peelings

Plant stems

Dairy products

Flowers

Twigs

Cooked/ processed food

Weeds

Autumn leaves

Coal ash

Hedge clippings

Crumpled cardboard

Cat/dog (carnoviare) litter/poo

Grass clippings (not too many at once)

Egg boxes

Root of perennial weeds (dandelions, ground elder, bindweed, couch, docks)

Teabags and coffee grounds

Egg shells

 

 

Wood shavings

 

 

Animal (herbivore) manure e.g. hamster/guinea pig

 

 

Loo/kitchen roll centres

 

 

Tips – the mix:

Fast rotters rot quickly, and can become compacted/wet so mixing them with slow rotters should prevent the compost becoming slimy and smelly. Slow rotters tend to be dryer so compost more slowly. They give the compost texture and create air pockets throughout the heap. Your home compost bin should ideally have a 50:50 proportion of slow rotters and fast rotters.
In the below video, we show you how to start composting, where to get equipment & share advice on the best mix of ingredients:

 

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