Composting
Use this service to order a compost bin.
You can buy a 220 litre Compost bin at a subsidised price of £14.95.
To buy a compost bin you can use our online form. Once the fee has been paid it will be delivered directly to you.
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.
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
- Raw vegetable peelings Plant stems, Dairy products
- Flowers, Twigs, Cooked/ processed food
- Weeds, Autumn leaves, Coal ash
- Hedge clippings, Crumpled cardboard
- 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.