The council’s environment and health department has recently published a report following a one-day sale of compost bins last May.
Test Valley’s started a twin bin scheme for domestic waste in the early 1990s. Most households have two wheeled bins – black for weekly refuse, green or brown for an alternating weekly collection of dry recyclables / compostable green waste. This has generated large tonnages of green waste.
To promote home composting the sale, run by Blackwall in May 2000, sold over 2,800 compost bins at two sites in Romsey and Andover to almost 2,200 households.
Council waste management officer, Tom Evison, sent out a questionnaire in October to find out how well the compost bins were performing, customer’s composting problems, their opinion of the sale, and how many compost bins might be languishing un-used at the bottom of the garden.
500 questionnaires were sent out, 318 were returned. 98% of respondents were still using the compost bins. Of all respondents, 47% were new to home composting. A broad range of materials were being composted from fruit and vegetable peelings, grass cuttings and dead flowers, to hair, cheese rinds and paper food wrappers.
There was a high level of satisfaction, both in terms of the One-Day Sale and its management, and of the compost bins themselves. Of particular attraction was the ease of access to the bin and the completed compost. The questionnaire did not assess quantities of waste diverted, but 60% of respondents claimed that as a result of home composting, they put out less waste for collection. Only 4 households claimed to be generating more waste.
A recent study by Hampshire County Council revealed that each household in Test Valley generates 350 kg of garden waste and kitchen compostables each year, compared to 160 kg across the whole of the county. Although Test Valley residents generate more compostable waste, they send more of it for composting; 78% as opposed to 6.25% countywide.
Mr Evison said of the reports findings, “Whilst these are encouraging figures, home composting will not be the great panacea to the problems of local authority waste disposal. By promoting home composting and other self-help ideas, householders will begin to see waste as their problem.”
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