Pembrokeshire to study impact of home composting

Pembrokeshire has purchased 30,000 home composting bins to be distributed across the county for a 12-month trial.

” In the UK we have vast quantities of green waste, so this is definitely an argument for home composting of this material to be counted. “
– Dr Julian Parfitt
The county hopes to be able to use the study to help put the case to the Welsh Assembly to include home composting within the recycling and composting targets set for councils in Wales.

Jill Jack, recycling manager at Pembrokeshire county council, said: “We firmly believe home composting should be counted. The reason for us is two-fold, it diverts biodegradable waste from landfill and in Wales we have specific compost targets to meet, so it could help with these.”

If Pembrokeshire wins funding from the Welsh Assembly, the council is considering providing shredding equipment at central points to allow residents to reduce the size of larger items of garden waste.

WRAP
One organisation that will be following Pembrokeshire's progress with home composting is WRAP – the Waste and Resources Action Programme. The organisation is carrying out its own work on home composting with 40 councils in England, and could use its findings to push the case for waste targets to take account of home composting.

Dr Julian Parfitt, principal analyst for WRAP, said: “In the UK we have vast quantities of green waste, so this is definitely an argument for home composting of this material to be counted. Other countries are not so interested in their lawns, hedges and herb gardens as us – this is a peculiar British thing.”

Kerbside
Pembrokeshire currently recycles just over 15% of its municipal waste and must meet an Assembly target of recycling 25% by 2006/07 and 40% by 2009/10. Of the 25% recycling target by 2006/07, 10 percentage points must be carried out through composting.

The council is currently expanding last year's pilot kerbside recycling scheme, which picks up paper, plastic and cans in clear, orange bags. It is hoped that 40% of households will be on the orange bag scheme by June. A target of 80% coverage for kerbside recycling has been set with the deadline of 2010, but the council hopes to achieve close to 100% coverage before that date.

The council does not collect green waste from the kerbside, and Ms Jack said it does not wish to do so in the future. She said: “We don't want to put on a separate collection for this, we've never collected green waste. People have never really put much of it in their bins. We collect green waste at our civic amenity sites and we will continue to do this.”