Composting bad for the environment?
Last post 10-03-2009 9:24 PM by Digger. 32 replies.
-
01/02/2007 11:22 AM
|
|
|
Hello everybody, isn't it lovely to have a good old rant when there's not much gardening to do? I agree with all of you. Composting bad for the environment, what a lot of !@#!!!. Perhaps they would rather we put peat on our gardens instead! What about all the packaging we have to get rid of. Will we have to pay for that twice? First in the shop, so that Tesco and their like can use our money to build their monstrous superstores on our green belt land; and then to pay the council to recycle it. Well I'm off to stump up the garden path and turn my lovely compost.
|
-
|
01/02/2007 12:59 PM
|
|
- Digger
- Northern UK
- 18 Jul 2005
-
4,743
|
Hi mollythewitch, yes it is good to let off steam but it's infuriating when we get told so many conflicting arguments as you will have gathered i am opinionated and soon get on my high horse the others know this and deliberately wind me up to get me into trouble:-)
digger 
|
-
|
01/02/2007 01:31 PM
|
|
- sue1002
- Ipswich, Suffolk
- 06 Sep 2005
-
5,200
|
Dunno what you are talking about digger:-)
|
-
|
01/02/2007 01:44 PM
|
|
- Digger
- Northern UK
- 18 Jul 2005
-
4,743
|
O yes you do :-)
digger
|
-
|
05/03/2007 01:48 PM
|
|
- Sir Trev
- 26 Feb 2007
-
31
|
It always amazes me to see how different areas of the country are being served in the recycling department. In South Bucks we have general and green wheelie bins as well as a box for paper. We have to take glass, plastic, tins, (clean) foil, and cans to recycling bins ourselves. I know a district councillor pretty well as he works at our place and he told me the county council decided not to bother investing in a sorting centre, hence no "blue" bin for us.
We are however having to pay extra council tax to move the composting activities to an indoor centre as people are complaining about the smell from the currently outdoor site. Huge piles of steaming waste that you can see from the household waste centre (the tip, as it used to be called) and my goodness what a lot of it there is!
I totally agree with Digger - no way am I taking compost from the council as the only thing they get from me is kitchen waste, stuff I cannot shred, and the perrenial pests. I know a lot of people don't bother with home composting so a lot of the stuff they take will be "clean" but even so you never know what people put in their bins! My local Notcutts now have a large container where you can help yourself to "DIY compost" - not sure where that comes from but personally I'll stick to my own.
Considering how little waste my household produces I should get a council tax rebate. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha..... (I know one should not laugh at one's own jokes but hey.....)
|
-
|
02/05/2007 08:25 PM
|
|
|
|
When you consider that most compost is in fact well aerated in summer, that home compost bins are so small that it is hard for them not to be well aerated, that methane is only produced in warm weather and that home composting is minor activity in the great scheme of industrialised people's impact on the environment, you have to wonder how significant the addition of this methane can really be.
Boggy
Beware the bat-eared bogweevil
|
-
|
10/08/2007 01:17 PM
|
|
- JamesA
- Peterborough
- 24 Aug 2006
-
160
|
The compost bins (brown here) were a con to get the recycling percentages up quickly without having to actually tackle the problem.
I think houses should have been given compost bins and told to compost like they're told to recycle rather than another wheelie bin to take it away.
Its madness giving the council all your compost and then buying it back later. A load of CO2 is used collecting the stuff and driving to the garden centre to buy some more.
You could always just have compost collections at times of year when there is going to be more compost than people can handle such as Christmas or when heavy pruning is happening.
Unless the bin trucks were running on biodisel it might be better for people to compost and then just go down the dump themselves when they've got a car load of big pruned branches.
|
-
|
10/08/2007 06:28 PM
|
|
- kandeakay
- west sussex
- 03 Aug 2007
-
101
|
Our local council charges £36 per annum for collection of green waste fortnightly. I use the service to dispose of waste that I don't want to compost - apparantly as their compost heaps are so big they reach a very high temp - so killing any unwanted spores, chemical residue etc. However I wouldn't buy any of the green waste to use on my garden.
|
-
|
11/08/2007 01:31 PM
|
|
- miranda
- Oxfordshire
- 17 Nov 2004
-
2,976
|
This is something that we talked about a while back and we were asking about what happens to any chemicals in stuff that is composted by councils. I can't see that heat could break the chemicals down and am put off the idea of using it here. I believe that commercial farmers are not allowed to use it on their fields and can't help wondering what might be in it.
|
-
|
15/08/2007 12:25 PM
|
|
|
|
Is it not very easy?
Should not people who buy stuff with lots of packaging, replace and renew lots of possessions and are generally wasteful and feckless pay for the pollution and damage that they cause?
If people who have a garden cannot be bothered to recycle green waste should they not be encouraged to mend their ways?
Unless people are encouraged and indeed if necessary pushed, to learn to live in a less wasteful way we are all in the soup.
And why should careful people like me subsidise other's slackness?
Boggy
[Edited on 15/08/2007]
Beware the bat-eared bogweevil
|
-
|
17/08/2007 09:24 AM
|
|
- JamesA
- Peterborough
- 24 Aug 2006
-
160
|
I think there are worrying rumblings from Labour that suggest they're too scared to bring in proper climate change law.
I think this is an emergency now and trying to change peoples habits over the next 10 years through education (whatever that means) isn't good enough.
I'd like to see:
The worst unnecessary products banned - patio heaters
tariffs put on wasteful unnecessary products - eg 100% tariff on plug in air fresheners to double the price
tariffs put on things to make the greener version cheaper- eg make recycled paper/kitchen roll cheaper
laws controlling packing - limit packaging and make all vegetable holders compostable
make shops charge £1 for carrier bags
proper support for home working - ie not like it is now where bosses just refuse it
increase true cost of car faster than trains - ie stop the Daily Mail-Jeremy Clarkson schoolboy nonsense that car drivers are hit when it actually costs are falling relatively
My hope is that the EU do something as Labour are too scared about upsetting their corporate sponsors.
[Edited on 17/08/2007]
|
-
|
17/08/2007 10:00 AM
|
|
- miranda
- Oxfordshire
- 17 Nov 2004
-
2,976
|
[b]Posted by:[/b] JamesA
I'd like to see: The worst unnecessary products banned - patio heaters
One thing that might put people off patio heaters is that the carbon dioxide they give off attracts mosquitoes. Divine retribution?
|
-
|
17/08/2007 12:08 PM
|
|
- Digger
- Northern UK
- 18 Jul 2005
-
4,743
|
By Gum this thread has taken off again, I think a major problem that we all have is misleading information from all sides. I do think that people cannot be forced into making changes in their lifestyles but higher taxes can persuade people to act differently, but i don't feel that we are being told the truth by politicians and i am confused by the conflicting information that we are given, if we have the green waste composting collection stopped by the council i don't think many people will compost their own waste they are too busy in a lot of circumstances . maybe people will see their garden as a burden on their time and money and opt for the concrete/tarmac equivalent. I don't have the room in my garden at home to compost all the green waste myself so it goes in the re cycle bin and i don't want to change my gardening habits to produce less compost or make room for more compost bins
digger
|
-
|
02/03/2009 08:37 PM
|
|
- lisar
- kent
- 02 Mar 2009
-
2
|
Can you help??? I'm a new owner of an allotment after 5 years of waiting.
I'm working hard on preparing the plot that was old orchards with brambles.
After my 2nd dig over i added some organic soil improver - dug in and then left a week. When i came to dig over again this week every time i dug it produced a blue methane flame/gas (like lighting a christmas cake).
Firstly is this normal? and secondly is this dangerous as i have my 22 month old little girl who loves spending the day playing in the mud with the worms.
Many thanks in advance for any advice
Regards
|
-
|
02/03/2009 08:53 PM
|
|
- miranda
- Oxfordshire
- 17 Nov 2004
-
2,976
|
It doesn't sound normal to me, lisar. I can't help with the why of it, but I'd get it looked into before you do any more!
|