Bananas skins on compost heap.

I have been putting banana skins in my recyclig bin........What a waste,surley they would be better off in MY compost heap or at least buried under rose bushes etc.

I already use them to help ripen tomatoes.

What value do you think they have?

 

Hi Rodders,

I would imagine they contain potassium, so a good thing. All our kitchen waste ends up back in the garden.

Just had the unpleasant task of emptying out last seasons liquid plant food barrel, its anerobic decompostion, so imagine going to the centre of a sewage works & inhaling deeply:7_6_5v:

 

I put the banana skins on my own compost heap. It's all organic material.
I only give the Council the stuff I don't want - including the potato peelings. They grow

 

Hi Alice the council dont take any veggie or fruit peelings now or teabags.

 

Jings Scotkat ! Where did you hear that ? What's the point in the kitchen recycle bin if peelings can't go in it. I'm off for a look at their site.

 

Hi again Alice Angus council stopped this early last year.

So just grass clippings twigs fresh flowers a little paper shreddings.

 

I've looked at the Councils website and I'm shocked
My card with collection dates says I can recycle food waste, meat,fish bones etc and fruit and vegetables. They provided me with a kitchen caddy to put the stuff in.
Their web page now says no kitchen waste , peelings etc.
I don't know when that changed but nobody told me.
I'll phone their wonderful :th_scifD36: call centre tomorrow.
Thank you for bringing that to my attention Scotkat.

 

Did they give a reason Alice ?

You could point this out to them,

http://www.greensuffolk.org/news/uk_s_first_brewery_waste_to_biogas_plant_completed

I thought we were meant to be producing renewables not putting more in landfill. Not everyone can compost stuff.

Tea bags they probably don't want since they stopped making them out of paper. They are plastic now & don't rot down for 200 years.

 

No, they didn't give any reason for the change, Ziggy.
In fact, it didn't say there had been any change. Just a different list of what could and couldn't go in the bin from what was there before - and from the list we got on our collection day cards.
If Scotkat hadn't mentioned it I would know nothing about it.

I think the problem might be they have been victims of their own success and can't actually deal with all the material they said they would recycle. I'll contact them tomorrow.

 

Scotkat & Alice - You had me worried for a moment but luckily I'm not in Angus and Perth & Kinross are still collecting just about any and all organic waste in our brown bins.
Out of curiousity I had a browse of the Angus Council recycling info and discovered that the change in policy is so the compost produced meets British Standards PAS100 (PAS = Publicly Available Specification) this sets out the standards to be met in order for waste to be classified as 'compost' rather than 'waste'.

As far as I'm aware P&K council are still making their processed waste available as 'soil conditioner' as well as using it in their public parks.

We put very little into our brown bin and banana skins, tattie peelings (and the odd half tattie too) go into our worm bins and get munched up with no problems of regrowth. However we do get quite a few tomatoes popping up in odd places as well a melons and citrus seedlings in the polytunnel.

 

Oh should I not be putting tea bags in my Darlek?
I'm a composting virgin and thought I'd lobby all sorts of Veg and kitchen waste and see what rots and fish out what doesn't. Still not been arrested for weeing in it yet. I blame the cold weather.

 

Still weeing on mine at every opportunity Exl,

No, its easy enough to fish tea bag wrappers out of the compost if they hadn't rotted down, same with kitchen utensils, mobile phones & the rest of the stuff the familiy considers "organic waste"

Like the worm thinger Dave, must look into that more.

 

Tea bags often are made of plastic these days ... so I read we should be tearing them and composting the contents and recycling the bag. What a palaver

Don't put meat or cooked food on (it attracts rats - use a Green Cone type composter for those, or a Wormery possibly)

And no faeces from meat-eating pets, but herbivore pets are OK.