Byline: Darren Smith of Premier WasteHIGH summer is here and if you have a garden, you probably have...

1. Don't get overwhelmed by your garden clippings; in
association with Environment Agency.
Byline: Darren Smith of Premier Waste
HIGH summer is here and if you have a garden, you probably have to
cut the lawn and trim the plants regularly.
Ornamental lawns can be cut every three days in rapid growth
conditions.
Your average family lawn should be cut about once a week. It all
adds up to a lot of grass and plant material that has to be disposed of.
Of course, you can home compost, but this is not possible for some
either through space or skill constraints.
Compost making can be a bit of a "dark art" - some people
seem able to succeed and some always fail.
Even those with a compost bin can be overwhelmed by the amount of
material being produced by the garden.
And some material is difficult for the gardener to compost - grass
clippings, woody stems and leaves are particularly difficult.
Help is at hand at your local household waste recycling site or via

2. a green waste collection from your house (ring your local council to see
if this is available for your area).
This collected garden waste is turned into compost, only on an
industrial scale.
This means it can cope with wood, grass and other hard-to-compost
material.
Unlike the garden compost pile that may have to stand for a year or
more before it is usable, Premier processes the material to make it
compost faster.
By chipping it down to a smaller size, putting it into a large pile
and using a special machine to turn the material regularly, we help the
compost generate much more heat (the heat comes from the natural
breakdown of the material - we add no artificial heat, microbes or
mechanism).
This means that we can produce compost in about six weeks.
Please remember to include only organic garden waste in your
material - no rubber gloves, footballs, garden chemicals or plastic
bags.
Please empty the plant material into the collection skips and
dispose of or re-use the bags you've transported the material in.

3. WHY BOTHER TO COMPOST?
THE aim of composting is to return to the soil the nutrients and
energy locked up in plants.
It is a very powerful form of recycling that is often overlooked in
the drive to recycle paper, glass, metal, and other materials.
Garden waste is a significant portion of the average bin load.
Removing it from landfill not only helps local authorities to meet their
targets, it also removes the climate change and pollution risk of
putting the material in landfill.
On average each person in the UK produces more than 500kg of
rubbish per year.
A heavy and ecologically damaging part of that waste is the
clippings from the garden.
This organic material once it is in landfill becomes a feeding
ground for anaerobic bacteria that produce methane, which despite best
efforts to capture it will leak into the atmosphere.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, about 22 times worse than
carbon dioxide.

4. If the garden material is burnt, then it immediately releases
carbon dioxide into the air, again aggravating global warming.
COMPOSTING BY PREMIER WASTE MANAGEMENT
WE have a long and successful history with composting source
segregated plant material.
This form of composting allows anyone and everyone to be involved
in composting; even people who have no room to have a compost bin or
lack the green fingers to compost.
Our compost is made from parks and garden clippings (shrubs,
flowers, hedge, trees and lawn cuttings) that are either collected by
staff of the local authority, or direct from households or household
recycling sites.
The plant material comes from local authorities in the North East
(mainly County Durham).
The material is source-separated. This means it has been collected

5. and stored separately from the general rubbish people put into their
black bins. It does not include kitchen waste or other food waste.
Premier Waste has produced a poster for schools to show the
composting process.
If you or your school would like a free poster showing the process,
email your details to recycling@premierwaste.com and put the words
"compost poster" in the title line.
WANT SOME COMPOSTING ADVICE?
MAKING compost is a bit of an art, so don't be afraid to get
some help.
You can find more information about composting and links to loads
more sites that offer free advice at www.premeirwaste.com. Look for
Composting Advice in the Quick Links section of the home page.
You can home compost but this is not possible for some through
space or skill constraints
CAPTION(S):
GENERATING HEAT Premier Waste at work on creating compost .

6. COPYRIGHT 2008 MGN Ltd.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the
copyright holder.
Copyright 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.