Can you obtain compost from the green waste recycled in your area?

[larkstar]

Re: the green household waste and that collected at the municipal tips

I live in Cheshire East and the council tells me:-

"We will take your food and garden waste to sealed tunnels which are temperature controlled to optimise the composting process. We leave the material in the tunnels for about a week where it is pasteurised, killing any pathogens. Then we move the material to a 'maturation area' where we leave it for 8 weeks when it is ready to use as compost. We transfer the compost off site for use in agriculture and horticulture. We have no plans to make the compost available to residents."

I have heard several times on Gardeners Question time that some councils give away bags of compost free to people taking waste to the green recycling tips or that other authorities give some away free or for a nominal fee - is this the case in your area?

Yes we can but we have to pay for it. You buy bags at the local tip.

We used to be able to pre covid but they’ve still not restarted the service

Yes. They usually have it for sale at the tip.

This. But they call it soil conditioner, not compost.
I compost the nice stuff from the garden and kitchen and take horrible stuff (eg perennial weeds) to the tip, and assume most people do the same. Which, since I have no idea of the 'manufacturing' process, makes me wary of buying back whatever-it-is!

I have had it and ended up with lots of weeds so wouldn't bother again ..

Our council has a contract with a company that hot composts it and you can buy it from them. They deliver in big builders bags. Different grades.

smaller council down the road sells it for £2 a bag as soil conditioner. you have to take your own bag.

Ours (large metropolitan council) doesn't. They encourage you to compost at home via reduced price composters.

Yes - East Cambridgeshire.

It is available free from at least 1 site, it is just tipped in a holding area and you can go and load up your own bags.
Other sites sell bags of it, I think they are £1.50.

We've had it several times and I currently have around 15 sacks of it on my front drive waiting to go on the garden.
We take DPs van or landrover and fill old compost or 12kg dog food sacks.

It's NOT compost, and they advertise it as soil improver.
At the moment it is more like dust, but it's good for mulching the garden with and eventually gets incorporated.

Nope, not in ours. We have a green waste scheme, but I'm not sure where it ends up.

I've also tried to find spent mushroom compost near me but there doesn't appear to be any. I compost as much as I can, and the amounts that I make are miniscule.

Yes, but you have to buy it & it's called Revive Soil Conditioner, it's £4.10 for 40L.

Yes you can just get bags of it at the recycling site (tip) its free gut is soil conditioner not compost.
I use it to top up beds at the allotment.

Yes. It's also 'soil improver' and can be a bit 'woody' depending on the season. We can go and collect (bring a bag and a spade) or they will deliver skips of it for a fee. We once needed a skip so had it delivered full of soil improver and taken away full of rubble... the resulting raised beds are very successful. No issues with perennial weeds and the like, I think their process kills those (unlike the tomato seeds in our compost heap)
wasteservices.amey.co.uk/where-we-work/cambridgeshire/schools-and-the-community/free-soil-conditioner/

Soil conditioner here too. 40L for £3 - if you collect from the composting site. It's good stuff. I bought 10 bags this year.

Apparently the quality has improved since the Council started charging for garden waste collections as there is a lot less plastic etc in it.

I'd be surprised if any cash strapped Council gave it away for free. It's going to be costing them to collect and process all the garden waste and the processor is going to want to sell the stuff to agriculture/horticulture.

Yes. It's not great though and we've had a ridiculous amount of weeds since we started using it. There's also quite a bit of plastic etc in it.

@larkstar , firstly hello neighbour!

Our green bins also take food waste, so being a bit thick here, our compost would be weeds, tree cutting and egg shells/ tea bags.

Not sure I want that on my garden. Last week my green bin even had a left over kebab in it all bagged up in those green bags.

@TheSpottedZebra exactly - a 200L compost bin doesn't really make much compost available - only about the bottom 20% is nicely composted at any one time. I planted a tree (Acer) moved a Camellia and planted a couple of courgettes and used most of it. I really need about 4 times the amount - In thinking about making a much larger one from pallets with two halves - full one side up and leave it to compost while I'm filling the other side up - it's just the space it would take up.

@drinkingwineoutofamug I wondered about that - we put the green bags with chicken carcasses etc on top of the green waste - always bagged up though - I thought they would put that into a separate digester but I don't know. Actually the council said they are going to ring me as I've asked them why they make "compost" (their words) from my green waste yet I can't buy it back after composting - I will ask about the food waste - there's probably something on the website - whatever they write I always have more questions. I'll be surprised if they do actually ring TBH.

On Gardeners Question time about 2, maybe 3 weeks ago one of the usual panel said he was reading a book about the benefits of putting wood chip into your soil - he was singing it's praises - I do this but probably not enough. I noticed Lidl currently have some bags of the small wood chip (the bags that go quickly are always the small wood chip size) - I think the bags were only £2.99. I have a 1 tonne bag of soil improve delivered every couple of years - out looks a lot when you put it down but it doesn't take long to completely disappear. Improved soil structure is fine but it's nutrients I want to put in - I'm never going to end up with that dark, moist, rich free flowing soil that I can run my hands through like Monty Don's 😕

Ours also contain food waste (peelings, egg shells, meat & bones cooked or raw etc).

The resultant product is fully composted though, while you get rhe odd but of plastic I've never noticed uncomposted foodstuffs.

This is what can go in ours

We can buy from our council, we used several tonnes following landscaping.

Here in France they do a free compost at the recycling centres special during spring - first come first serve and you have to bag it yourself. We haven't got a trailer so didn't partake this year and our car was very clean and new so didn't want to get it filthy just yet.

Sorry wrong thread somehow

I don’t pay to have my green bin emptied so not sure but all of my fruit/veg waste and grass cuttings go into my own compost bin and I use the compost when full.

Our green waste is collected by the council's nominated rubbish/recycling plant, which is a 3rd-party private company. Who then in turn, turn it into compost or soil conditioner, bag it and then sell it to garden centres in bulk etc.

So unfortunately, we have to pay for both the green waste collection service, and then for if we wanted to actually buy any of the compost back.

Our council doesn't do this either.

I seem to have always lived in places where these perks are not available. GQT also sometimes talk about local tree surgeons who will give you free wood chips but I've never found one!

That said, lots of people keep horses round here so it's easy to get free, fresh manure that you need to mature yourself. You just need the nose to transport it in the car The older stuff tends to be already taken.