Garden waste wheelie bin woes

I'm a nothing out gardener now so like @fairygirl larger sticks go into a dead hedge and the rest I just shred and compost. I am quite cheap by nature and if I can make it at home then I don't need to buy compost, plus it's a bit of a cheek that often councils are making a profit from the compost collections anyway when they are selling on the green waste.

When I did have a bin, it would be filled to the brim and stomped down until you couldn't get anymore in and it weighed a ton. I never had any problems with collections.

 

Your garden waste is probably going to a site where it eventually will be incorporated into a peat free growing media mix. Soil will not heat up which could result in the mix never being sterile.

I had a long conversation with Audrey Litterick who is a soil scientist, she contacted us and all other compost manufacturers regarding pathogens being found in the peat reduced and peat free compost.

I told her this green waste PAS100 was not and never will be a peat substitute, she agreed. Because there is still food waste getting in, these windrows have to be hotter to kill e-coli and salmonella. I visited four different sites last year that produce green waste to PAS100 standards, they take regular temperatures of the mix and they all were recorded above 80c, hot enough to kill any bacteria, but the high temperatures is literally burning the texture making it a poor quality substrate to use in high quantities in a growing media. With it being a very wet 18 months, some of these windrows might not have even got to temperatures to kill weed seeds let alone pathogens, hence why it's got into some retail compost.

She told me there was a couple of sites that are now more specific of the waste they will take as they will be looking at composting at around 60c so not to ruin the texture but sufficient enough to kill any weed seeds. Soil will not heat up making composting more difficult especially if the aim is for the end product to be used by the compost manufactures where as the PAS100 grade will be classed as a soil conditioner only.

Do you actually know where your green bin waste is going and what the final use will be for. If its going to someone where the final product will be for making a peat free compost, then I can understand the reasoning for what you can't put in the bin.

 

I think it does go to make compost, @gks. I comply to the letter (or soil particle ), but I absolutely know for sure not everyone does, so I may be wasting my time.

 

If they know the postcode where others are not complying they are very likely to refuse collections from that entire postcodes, they have cameras fitted, they maybe even not collect again. It happened to a composting site near me where the the waste was contaminated, the council said if they did not comply, those in that postcode would never get another collection as the composting site would refuse it in the future.

Gardeners have got use to buying 100% peat based multipurpose compost in the past, there lies the problem. It's not compost, it's a growing media, compost is a combination of numerous materials that have been composted, hence compost. PAS100 is actually compost but it's not a growing media.

Peat is sterile and stable where green waste will be sterile but its not stable. Composted bark takes 9 months for it to be stable, green waste and fresh mushroom compost takes nearly 2 years for it to be stable.

 

You all may be interested in more depth in the projects being carried out with Dr Audrey Litterick to resolve the issues.:
Eliminating peat from propagation using growing media blocks

 

From purely the point of view of the person who fills the bin rather than the user of the contents I just dont think its going to work.
I for one will not be using my water to wash off roots, its ridiculous, I'm guessing the waste company gets a higher pay out by having customers do this, but it is garden waste, Afterall, so will contain some soil if there are roots in there.

Its all getting ridiculous and if they stop accepting the waste, that people are paying them to take away, fly tipping will only increase, its a problem around here big time because of so many restrictions on what waste you can take to the tip.

 

During our chat I told her I was not going down the route of a peat free multi-purpose compost. I was struggling to get good germination rates with having a point of sale price. I decided to go down the route of having a peat free seed & cutting mix and a peat free general potting mix, she said I was going down the right path. However, that has not materialised in volume sales, the retail sector are still wanting a multipurpose peat free compost as you have come accustom to using.

As by these trails that are on going as by your link, the issue is germination. As multi-purpose is worded as an, can do everything compost, the costs involved to bring a quality compost that has a good germination rate but is not to expensive, is literally impossible. The last thing we want is to deter now and future growers from all sectors throwing in the towel because they struggle with germination. The sector needs more time for trials, plus we need the retail sector to be more on board and that a peat free multi-purpose route is actually going to harm the sector.

 

Ours is also about £50 for fortnightly collections although they quickly removed a couple of collections around Christmas and New Year. Last year they informed us they wouldn't collect at all in December and January, but the price would be the same. Depending on how collection dates fall we can actually go nearly 3 months without a collection. Then they have the cheek to complain about bins being heavy. I wonder why they're heavy?

 

We miss one collection in January, but they do come round to pick up real Xmas trees that week. Fair enough, IMV.

 

We have no collections from mid October to mid March. At least we don't pay for our collections.......Yet.

 

One or two in late December and early Jan I don't mind, but looking at this years calendar our last collection will be 19th November and the next 11th Feb.

 

That is a long gap, especially if you have trees that don't drop their leaves till December in mild autumns.

 

Our green bin collections are (for the time being anyway) included in the council tax, but collections (fortnightly) don't start until March and finish in November. I mostly fill it in the winter because that's when the clearing of a lot of stuff that I can't compost at home happens, so it can be brim-full and heavy for the first collection, but I've never had them refuse to empty it. While we're not allowed to put soil in, a small amount clinging to roots is allowed, and if they miss a collection, which is common in March when most people's bins are full and they often don't seem to be able to get round the whole route, if you fill in the form on the council's website they'll come back for it the next working day.
After the first few collections it's not usually full and quite often there's so little in there that I don't bother putting it out, so if they started charging extra for it (guessing it really is extra because they wouldn't reduce the main council tax accordingly) I probably wouldn't pay for it.

 

While I don't use the green bin service, composting most things, if no seperate service is operational 'off peak', surely legitimate to use the grey refuse bin without question ?

 

If I didn't have the green bin I would probably bag up the dandelion roots, brambles etc that I don't want in my own compost and either put them in the black bin or take them to the recycling centre. As it is, they accumulate all winter in the green bin and sometimes bags to fill it back up after the first collection,