From the Cumbernauld News and Kilsyth Chronicle
23rd October 2002.
The Local Biodiversity Action
Partnership (LDAP) is urging North
Lanarkshire residents to waste not, want not, as part of the
North Lanarkshire
Green Waste Trial, which is designed to encourage residents
to try home composting. For home composting is not only good
for you, it's good for local wildlife too!
And don't worry if you think
this sounds like hard work - home composting
involves nothing more than throwing your uncooked fruit and
vegetable
kitchen scraps and plant waste from the garden into a compost
bin! After that,
all you have to do is give it a mix once a week to let some
air in and let nature
do the rest for you. And as we are in the autumn season, fallen
leaves can be
added to the mix or piled up and left to make an excellent soil
conditioner.
The compost produced by the
waste can be used as a free replacement for
the peat based composts that you would normally buy at your
local garden
centre. And remember, peat comes from peat bogs, which are the
home to
one of North Lanarkshire's most valuable wildlife habitats and
some of our
more unusual plants and animals: sphagnum moss, the insect-eating
plants
sundew and bladderwort, and birds such as the meadow pipit,
skylark and
drumming snipe. So,if you make your own compost, you can help
reduce
the amount of peat being used and preserve these important habitats.
Alternatively, we can all make
a difference by buying commercial peat-free
composts made from coconut fibre, bark or waste green materials
which,
according to independent reports, perform even better than peat
based ones.
And there's more - as home composting
is also a good way of cutting down
the waste going into our rubbish bins, it reduces the level
of greenhouse gasses
produced when this rubbish is dumped in landfill sites. Scientists
world-wide
now agree that greenhouse gases are contributing to global warming,
which in
the UK could result in the flooding and destruction of up to
10,000 hectares
of salt marshes and sandflats, including many nature reserves.
So anything
that slows down this process is to be welcomed, especially as
many of our
wild flowers and animals might not be able to cope with the
changing weather.
The North Lanarkshire Green
Waste Trial hopes to make a difference by
helping you to carry out the oldest form of recycling and spread
the
composting word. Where home composting is not practical, we
would also
like to help start up community composting schemes.
If you are interested in home
composting and live in the North Lanarkshire
area you can purchase a bin at cost price from North Lanarkshire
Council on
01698 302777. For general information and advice on home composting,
details on constructing your own bin, free information sheets
or if you are
interested in community composting, contact Sheila Mawer at
Bell College on
01698 894419.
Every month, LBAP have been
providing some great prizes in their monthly
competitions. This month you can win a compost bin and
kit. To enter, please
send your answer the following question on a postcard (remember
to include
your name and contact details to the Conservation and Greening
Unit,
Palacerigg House, Cumbernauld G67 3HU. The first three correct
entries
drawn from the bag by Monday November 25, 2002, will win.
Q. Name two types of waste
that you can put on a compost heap.
