Its Compost not Radio-Active Waste!

Its Compost not Radio-Active Waste!

Recently I have been undertaking a compost spreading deployment application, and I am absolutly amazed at the number of hoops that it is nessassary to jump through in order to spread compost.

I could understand the rigourus process if the waste was toxic, but it is not proven via testing that it has very low levels of toxic elements.

The nutrient levels in the compost are fairly high which you may point out may leed to eutrophication etc, but when you look at water extractable nutrients in many cases they are completly absent, meaning that the nutrients are locked with the compost.

On clay soils, compost is massivly beneficial, making the soil more crumbly, which in turn leeds to more efficient use nutrients by plants.

When changing a regime of artificial fertiliser use to that of compost use, yiou will see eleveated macro nutrient levels owing to the application of synthetci fertilisers, and low micro nutrients. It is hard therefore to swith from one to the other under the current "agricultural benefit" system, as by applying compost to boost micro nutirnt levels you will be over applying macro nutrients.

All in all an unfit sytem for what is a useful biproduct of the human race, and at the moment is treated as though it was a dangerous substance.

Note: This applies to green waste compost only.

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A trip to an industrial composting site.

First we looked at the garden waste composting. The finished product looked really well graded, and they had various courser grades, The Carymore man said that people come and buy it by the trailer load, or sometimes truck load. It is marketed as a soil conditioner. The area looked small for its intended purpose, the windrows were sandwiched right up against each other, and they must have been difficult to work effectively like this. There were pools to catch the runoff from the area, the worry being that the runoff will be nutrient rich and may cause eutrophication in nearby water courses (30/12/09: plus it will be acidic (organic acid) and mobilize nasty’s that may be best left where they are, especially as the site was previously a munitions dump (Heavy Metals etc)!!

It was good to see the in vessel composting system. Application of learning is a good thing. This as the high temperature 70 – 75 C composting to get rid of the foot and mouth pathogens, temps must be maintained at 60 for 48 hours, all overseen by EA. I ironically this was the compost that was most popular with the farmers, even though it carries the highest risk. Why? It’s the cheapest compost there. (Perhaps the high temps also kill off seeds and spores, so the farmer doesn’t get geraniums growing all over his farm?)

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Reuse is THE BEST form of recycling

LATS no longer required?: Is the LATS scheme counterproductive? Just like giving householders a big bin, this gives district councils the option to fill a given space. Landfill tax on its own should be enough to halt the flow of waste to landfill, and is already having a big effect.

In Germany they have a system whereby it is banned to place bio degradable material in a landfill site, this is a great idea, why not force people to just “do it”. You could ponce around with taxes like the UK but no Germany wallop. Done. The level of domestic sorting that occurs in Germany also impressed me, they have four bins, and their compost bins and vented to prevent anaerobic decomposition. Aerobic means in the presence of air, so by allowing air in (as I understand it) it stops the anaerobic process before I t begins.

In California, re-use is more acceptable. Re use in the States is not frowned upon like it is in the UK. So why is this? Well the Brits are a stuck up bunch of @55es We seem to have been suckered by commercialism, lost our way in the fog of cheap consumer goods and cheap credit. Perhaps now we can have a better crack at showing a little backbone. (Now we can’t get drastic with the plastic (credit cards))

Reuse is THE BEST form of recycling as it occurs so high up the “chain”. If people, bought stuff from recycling centers this would help, resale points at CAs should be compulsory! How would the reuse of building materials fit in with building regulations, the LPA are so specific with what they will allow. I should imagine the use of structural recycled material would be frowned upon whilst cosmetic stuff would be more acceptable.

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