Compost Awareness Week 2010

Monday, 24 May 2010 13:45

As part of this years International Compost Awareness Week 2010-CCN and WRAP supported a number of awareness raising events this year, encouraging the public to go 'peat free' and to 'give it a grow'. Scroll down or click on the links to read accounts of the differen events written by CCN members. There are also three photo albums - just the links to scroll through the different images, and click on the thumbnails to enlarge.

1. Cornwall Waste Action
Women's Environmental Network
Photo Set One
Dean Community Compost
Photo Set Two
Trunch Community Composting Scheme
York Rotters
Leicestershire Allotment and Leisure Garden Council
Photo Set Three
Ross-shire Waste Action Network
Forth Environment Link
Ban Waste

Cornwall Waste Action
CWA ran a compost awareness stall at a busy Farmers Market in Truro as part of international compost awareness week. Materials on the stall were used to promote the use of peat-free compost and to provide information and advice on home composting. To attract people to the stall we had samples of peat free compost which were given away along with vegetable seeds to grow in the compost. There was also a "Go peat free" pledge for people to sign and in return they were entered into a prize draw with prizes of a compost bin, compost caddy and composting book. On the stall were also examples of commercially produced and home-made peat free compost. An experienced compost development worker and compost volunteer mentors were on hand to answer and questions and encourage the public to go peat-free.

Women's Environmental Network
WEN celebrated Compost Awareness Week with a morning of workshops on Tuesday 4th May 2010, hosted by our friends at the Ocean Somali Community Association, in Mile End, east London.Banana and honey facemasks were on the menu, as well as an introductory workshop to home composting, and a visit to the Ocean Somali women’s gardening space and compost bin. In total, we were joined by 10 participants, all of them Somali women aged between 16 and 75. Two of the women bought their children with them, who were a welcome addition to the group. Participants went away with a greater awareness of home composting, an understanding of what can be composted, and where to source compost bins in their area. Several of the women expressed interested in the women's gardening project. The women also took home WEN food-growing briefings and compost booklets.

Compost Awareness Week 2010-Leicestershire Allotment and Leisure Garden CouncilThe winning entries of the painted compost bin competition : Year 7TLC Group at Rushey Mead School

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Dean Community Compost
We have been working with Newham Alloment Association over the last few months hoping that we will be able to start some community composting there. They identified a site where we will be able to start composting as well as solve an ongoing issue for them. An old burn pile. I mean old! The pile has been added to, not only by allotment holders, for over 50 years! Every week or so it is set fire to but the material added is not always ideal for burning including soil, damp weeds and plastic. The result was a pile of half burnt composty soil with dubious benefit as a soil amendment that was ten foot high and covered a whole allotment. The money we were given was put towards a digger for the day and holding a workshop/question /discussion time on the benefits of composting for anyone that turned up.We had a few hours where everyone could muck in with rakes and grass seed. And, of course, hot local apple juice and biscuits.The weather was cold and damp but nonetheless we had between eight and ten people turn up with rakes, questions and support.

Compost Awareness Week 2010-Trunch Community Composting SchemeTrunch Community Composting Scheme hold their first open day in celebration of CAW

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Trunch Community Composting Scheme

Saturday 8th May was a memorable day for Trunch Community Composting Scheme as we had chosen that day to have our first Open Day. Friday evening before the event our volunteers lovingly decorated our composting site, an old disused barn complex, with bunting . Spirits were high as we battled in the wind but at last the bunting was up and flapping violently. The forcast for the following 24 hours was pretty grim and we wondered if the bunting would still be there in the morning.

We arrived at 8.30am on the morning of the event and were relieved to see the bunting was still there to greet us as was one of the two Master Composters we were expecting. Their task for the day was to advise and encourage our visitors on all aspects of home composting. Jane and Jo (MC's) pitched in with our volunteers as we battled against the northerly wind to erect three gazebos. That task completed we set up the refreshments under one. the Master Compost stand under another which left one to shelter our visitors should it rain...!!!

Our plans for the day were to go ahead with our weekly village green waste collection as usual which began at 9am and finished around 11am. Our visitors had been invited for 10.30am and would see our tractor and trailer arrive back at the site. There can be as many as twelve volunteers to help with the unloading, sorting, weighing and recording and it is always a great sight. The plan was then to give demonstrations of the various activities that are undertaken by volunteers as part of the composting process. Our beautiful peat free compost was stacked ready for enthusiastic visitors to buy.Our collection went as planned but the weather did not. It started to rain heavily about 11am and was still pouring at 1pm and it was very cold and windy. Sadly very few visitors braved the weather but those who did were warmly welcolmed and given a guided tour. Our volunteers had lots of time for good 'composting' chat with the Master Composters and warmed up under the dripping gazebos with tea and a good supply of cakes.

York Rotters
The events included:

Saturday 1^st May – Wormcharming at St Nicholas Fields:The annual Wormcharming competition was held at the Environment Centre. The competition didn’t attract any worms despite the weather being very wet.
Sunday 2^nd May – Information Stall at Deans Garden Centre. York Rotters had a display stand and compost bin cutout inside the Garden Centre. York Rotters gave composting advice to 34 residents.
Tuesday 4^th May. A training course on How To Compost was held which 4 people attended.
Wednesday 5^th May. Local gardening expert, Sandra Geere, carried out a talk on ’Using Home Compost to ‘Grow Your Own’ in a Small Space at York Environment Centre. During the course attendees got to plant up some containers. The training course was attended by 9 people.
Thursday 6^th May Information Stall at Morrisons, Foss Islands Road. The local radio station, Minster FM, attended the event. Four radio interviews were carried out during the roadshow and 63 people were given home composting advice.
Saturday 8^th May 2pm – performance of Compost ! (the mini-musical) at York Environment Centre. A local cub group, who had learnt the musical in March, taught people the musical which was then performed to the audience at the York Environment Centre’s 10^th Birthday Party.

Throughout the week, free pumpkin seeds were given away to residents so they could take part in the Giant Pumpkin Competition. Anyone taking the seeds was entered into a prize draw to win a composting starter kit. The winner will be chosen on the June 18^th.

During the week, in addition to the Minster FM radio interviews, a radio interview was aired on Radio York about the events during Compost Awareness Week. A half page advert and editorial appeared twice in The Press. Local magazine, The Local Link, ran an advert about composting and the events being held. York Rotters and composting was mentioned in the Green column of The Press. The column is written by a York Rotter volunteer who had MP Hugh Bayley and Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, come to her house and get their hands dirty in her compost bin. Click here to read more...

Leicestershire Allotment and Leisure Garden Council
Over 2,000 leaflets were distributed to Garden Centres apart of the compost week awareness campagn promoting home composting, the Leicestershire Compost week competitiona and the use of peat free and peat reduced compost.

Competion Winners

1. Painted Compost Bin Rushey Mead School year 7 TLC Group won the painted bin competition with their themed "insect" bins. the school will be presented with a wormery donated by Original Organics Ltd.

2. The School Best Compost competition was won by Hugglescote Primary School who won a wormery generously donated by Original Organics Ltd.

3. The Best Compost (Open) Competition first prize was won by J F Clarke (Original organics wormery plus Garden Voucher) . Second D Sidwell (Original Organics Wormery) Third prize V Pagett ( Compost bin donated by Leicestershire Waste Partnership).

compost at Woodlands Garden Centre resulted in contact being made with over 500 existing and potential composters. The support of the Garden Centre in this promotion was much appreciated.

Compost Awareness Week 2010-Leicestershire Allotment and Leisure Garden CouncilPrizes being awarded to the winners of the best compost competitions.

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Ross-shire Waste Action Network
RoWAN hosted a Smart Living exhibition at Eastgate Shopping Centre, Inverness in parntership with several waste aware organisations.Over the two days we spoke to nearly 100 folk about composting, and the comissioned walkabout sketches featuring composting, give it a grow and peatfree messages were delivered by our waste family and also another character dressed up as a scarecrow on stilts

Forth Environmental Link
The Forth Valley Master Composter volunteers went on a visit to Flanders Moss, to experience the peat bog, see the restoration work there and augment their understanding about the benefits of home composting. The SNH warden greeted us at a site that was previously prepared for peat extraction, but has been reprieved by restoration measures.

BAN Waste

BAN Waste was pleased to put on two events during this year’s International Compost Awareness week.This included a Q&A session to those already involved, but interested in knowing more and particularly in slightly larger scale opportunities. We had people from the local transition town group, a representative from Little Wasters (a local CIC group), LUSH and BAN waste members join us to learn from a local homeless charity about their community composting scheme and have a look around a local garden to see the uses for compost. We had 10 people actively involved in the 2 hour informal discussions, and we all learned a lot from each other’s experiences of tumblers, hot boxes, compost toilets and wormeries. The details of the community scheme was written up for people who didn’t make it along.

Our second event was a general family day event, run as a drop in session with stalls. It was a rather cold day so attendance was lower than we had hoped at around 40 people over the 4 hours. We had 4 stalls with a activities and games aimed at children, including a wonderful version of compost bug snap and choosing your compost to plant beans. Visitors were able to look at the large wormery set up at the Ouseburn Farm and find out more about what schools are doing through the Newcastle City Council’s EnviroSchools programme and details of the council’s green waste scheme. We had 40 bags of free soil conditioner, and it was all gone by the end. There was also a lot of interest in the council’s subsidised composters and their kitchen caddies give away. We got a variety of people coming along not just families. So we had a couple of people who had just got their own allotment and wanted to know about composting for that. There were some people who had moved into new houses with compost bins and didn’t know what to do with them. We had a family in a flat who felt they couldn’t get involved, who were very interested in the council’s subsidised wormery.

More to follow...

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