Composting - Organic Waste

Kitchen Waste, of which most is organic, when added to garden waste makes up the majority of waste of which we dispose.

Organic waste not only can be biodegraded, but when composted it produces a substance that can be used as a fertiliser that is useful for house plants and the garden. This is often significantly richer and more environmentally friendly than the peat derived ones.

There are many ways of composting, but most depend on the scale.

Composting can be done on different scales:

In small gardens
In large gardens
For a community – block of flats
For the village
Commercially.

1. In Small gardens

You can either make up your own small composting unit or buy one. These small plastic composting bins are useful for household organic waste (no meats, dairy products or animal waste), shredded paper and ash from an occasional fire (cold) with a small amount of lawn grass cuttings and perhaps some pruning. If you have ash most of the winter this can compensate for the small amount of grass cuttings and leaves from the trees that occur at different times of the year but you may have to consider the larger size composting bin.

2. In Large gardens

For larger households and gardens you could build your own composter, get someone to build it for you or buy a large composting bin from Clare County Council. You could also consider a wormery for they can also take cooked food and meats that cannot be used in composting without attracting rodents.

As the bin fills, the contents begin to biodegrade and shrink and you can use it all year round. You will, however, have to empty the bottom occasionally, but this is such good compost that you can put it on the garden at any time of the year.

3. For a community – block of flats

If you have no garden but still have organic waste from your home, then you need to get rid of it in a way other than sending it to the tip. Consider community composting – where one takes responsibility for its upkeep and see that no rodents appear because people have placed meat, dairy products or animal waste in the composting. The responsible person also has to clear out the good compost regularly either taking it to the flat owners for their plants or to local shops to replace the peat sale.

4. For the village

Your community could have its own composting outlet – where you drop off your garden and household waste (free of charge) and it is managed so that, in the end, the compost is sold as a surplus product. Only "surplus" should be sold on because if the household gives you their organic waste, they should be accommodated by having fertiliser for their gardens and plants. Wormeries may be even better for this type of composting because meat, dairy products and animal wastes in small amounts could also be accommodated.

The community could organise that the wet waste to be brought to Inagh Waste Management facility though a cost will be incurred. This is the only centre to take this type of waste and it is not collected.

5. Commercially

This is where the organic waste can be collected or dropped off for processing
Shredded paper can be added to your composting in layers between the garden and kitchen waste.

Local offices could supply shredded paper and local hotels and restaurants their organic waste – but beware of quantity and quality. Here again wormeries could be used for part of the process.

Nappies

Disposable nappies may have been a godsend to mothers, but they have been a curse to the landfill. In Ireland 600,000 of these are used every day and almost all have ended up in the nation's landfill, where it takes up to 500 years for them to decompose.

Nappies cannot be composted and will end up on landfills.