Making your own compost using a composting bin in your garden is simple and cost effective. In addition, composting reduces the waste we are asking our rubbish collectors to pick up and reduces the amount of commercial fertilizers we have to purchase. Gardening with organic compost is the oldest and most natural way to garden.

You’ll need some tools to get started. Don’t spend time fretting about the cost; these tools are relatively inexpensive and will pay for themselves quickly because of the money you’ll save on commercial fertilizers and soil amendments.

You’ll essentially need three tools: a composting bin, a gardening bin and a kitchen bin. You’ll use your kitchen bin to collect organic matter from your kitchen like coffee grounds, tea grounds, vegetable by products and egg shells. You’ll take your gardening bin with you when you weed your garden, placing grass clippings, weeds, sticks and other garden waste into it. Finally, your composting bin is what you’ll empty both your kitchen bin and your gardening bin into, allowing the material to decompose into compost.

Choose a kitchen bin that fits nicely under your sink, and one that has an airtight lid, to prevent odours. Your gardening bin should be easy for you to carry around the garden, but not so small that you’re constantly having to empty it out while you’re weeding.

Choosing the right composting bin is slightly more difficult. There are several things you need to consider.

First of all, decomposition takes time. Your clippings and organic matter will break down fairly slowly. The length of time depends upon the type of matter you’ve put into your bin as well as the amount of moisture and air they receive. Organic matter that gets too dry will decompose much more slowly than that which is kept moist. Items like autumn leaves, for example, will break down more quickly than, say, egg shells, because the leaves are already somewhat decomposed when you rake them and add them to the composting bin.

For this reason, many families choose to have a couple of composting bins. When one gets full, they stop adding matter to it and allow it to complete the decomposition process, putting their new organic matter into the second bin. By the time the second bin is full, the first one should be completely decomposed into compost. You can empty it, add it to your gardens, and then begin the cycle all over again.

So, you’ll need to consider how much organic matter you’ll have to put into your composting bin. A family of two will have far less kitchen waste than a family of four. A family with a big garden will produce far more clippings than a family with a very small garden. Plus, you’ll need to decide if you want to have two bins, so that you can always save your organic matter, or if you want to take a “recycling break”, simply adding to your composting bin until it’s full and then refraining from collecting organic matter until your compost is ready and the bin can be emptied. Then, you start the process again.

Once you’ve decided on how you’ll manage your composting at home, take a look at products available to help make life easier. You’ll find a wide range of composting and recycling products at reasonable prices. You can find your kitchen bin, gardening bin and composting bin on this site, and you won’t have to spend a fortune to prepare for recycling at home.

Editors’ notes:
NowRecycle.co.uk is a trading style of Plastic Omnium Systems Ltd - a European market leader in waste containment solutions that provides a wide range of waste containers and services including wheeled bins, litter bins, banks, composters and sacks. It is part of the International Plastic Omnium Group, a world leader in contract waste container solutions with worldwide sales of more than £1.8 billion. It employs over 9,000 people in 25 countries, across four continents, in manufacturing and service solutions for the automotive, environment and performance plastic products.
Press Contact: Simon Dutta, N European Marketing Director, Plastic Omnium Urban Systems Ltd
Telephone: 01952 582 583

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 10:54 am and is filed under Recycling Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.