Composting and your New Year's Resolution
On our small space-ship Earth, the long term future of our human civilization depends entirely on recycling. There's no need to spell this out. It's plain common sense. Apart from sunlight and the odd meteorite, we just have to make do with the resources the Earth provides for us. In a well balanced “natural” world there is no “waste” because everything which is “waste” for one life form becomes “food” for another. That's been the case for millions of years – and always will be whatever humans may think! This “reality” is not understood or practised in any way by our present civilisation. But it's one reality which each of us can actually do something about if we learn to compost our organic waste. About 10 million tons of bio-degradable organic household waste is put into landfill every year in the UK. The huge cost of this folly (in terms of pollution and wasted nutrients) could all be avoided if each household carried out its own simple composting arrangements. The horrid “dalek” plastic bins which local authorities have taken to issuing are a disaster. The rats and stinking black slime they produce are enough to put anyone off composting for life! On the other hand a simple properly designed brick built closed composter can – with a little skill – deal with all a household's organic waste (including humanure!) safely and hygenically. Here is a picture of the one I built and use. Its structure keeps out rats, birds and most flies. Its slatted wooden front lets the compost “breathe” and is removed to dig out beautiful black “soil” in years to come. It's still only two thirds full after 4 years of daily use!
Your Garden Compost
Those of you who “grow your own” will have garden compost to deal with at this time of year. I have just tidied up my large garden compost bins ready to spread the lovely finished product on the garden to “feed the soil” after Christmas. Here are pictures showing the heaps before and then after the tidy up.
Compost heaps before the tidy up– left hand is this year's, right hand is last year's.
And here's the friendly toad I found enjoying my compost heap! He quickly wriggled into a cosy spot.
And finally the compost ready for spreading - a nice Christmas present for the garden!
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