Good weather kicks off early composting season

Composting site managers have been rushed off their feet after the sun lured householders into their gardens up to a month earlier than usual.

Mad
Tina Hales, coordinator for Onyx's Pro-Grow compost, told letsrecycle.com: “It's gone mad! It was quite unexpected for this time of year – our tonnage has gone up about 30% on last year. It's not only gardeners getting out now the weather is good, but also landscapers and even the retail sector has started early.”

Stephen Wise, SITA's composting manager, revealed that green waste input at SITA's Leicestershire sites in March was 40% more than in 2002. And he pointed out that the good weather would benefit sales of compost product as well, as people began gardening in earnest.

Charlie Trousdell of Sussex-based TJ Composting said: “The weather's been very good and compost has been coming out of our ears! Particularly because it was such a miserable winter, this is the first period when we have had two or three weeks of fairly decent weather. A lot of people haven't done much in the garden and have gone out and caught up with the winter's work.”

Easter
The amount of green waste coming in to municipal composting sites usually increases from about mid-March, but the real start to the season is generally seen as the Easter bank holiday weekend. The composting companies are now working hard to be ready for the inevitable surge of green waste that will come with the start of this holiday on April 18.

Emily Nichols, technical manager at the Composting Association, said producers have been working hard to make way for peak deliveries of green waste expected in the next few weeks. “Usually Easter weekend is a very busy one because people get out in the garden and cut things back for perhaps the first, or in this particular season, even the second time,” she said.

“The producers will have carried out their operations to create more space than usual on the composting pad to take more windrows because of the expected good weather.”

Price
The gate fee for green waste disposal may creep up by about 1 a tonne in the coming months in response to the 1 a tonne annual increase in landfill tax which will coincide with the Budget this week.

Although the landfill tax does not apply to compost, several composting firms have been considering readjusting their prices in tune with the start of the financial year. So as the tax goes up, the gate fee for compost is expected to increase.

The most commonly quoted price for bulk disposal of green waste at the moment is about 19-20 per tonne.