Recycling Rubbish:

The red boxes were now able to accept the following wider range of materials:

• Paper: Newspapers, Magazines, Envelopes (both brown and window), Direct mail, Greeting cards, Wrapping paper, Yellow Pages, Catalogues, Other telephone directories, Flattened card food packaging (e.g. cereal boxes), Small pieces of cardboard and Shredded paper (wrapped in newspaper).
• Glass: Bottles and Jars.
• Metal: Food and drink cans, Aerosols, Foil, Sweet tins and Biscuit tins.

N.B. In order to load them onto the collection vehicles they had to fit within the confines of the Red box. If you had any larger quantities (e.g. of cardboard) that need to be recycled you could take them to Hunters Lane Household Recycling Centre which had now re-opened.

Since April 2009 the council are now able to collect a wider range of refuse from the three bin scheme as a result of a new contract with Pure Recycling. However, this has had its problems with their sorting facilities. You can give the council feedback what you think about this three bin recycling scheme. You might want to refer back to the 2007 survey first.

In a bin?
You may think that the first thing you need to do is buy a bin. Well, you don't need a bin. You can just make a pile of compost materials in a quiet corner of the garden or allotment; but it doesn't look very tidy and can be had to manage. You can improvise a bin from scrap wood or old pallets. If you have lots of space, build an open compost bay from straw bales. Or get a bin from the local council, garden centre or Freecycle/Freegle. For best results, you need your bin or heap to be at least 1 cubic metre in volume (that's a metre high by a metre wide by a metre deep). Most commercially available bins are at least this volume, but do bear it in mind if building your own.

On what?
If possible, stand the bin on bare earth or grass; this will allow all the organisms that are part of the composting process easy access. But if this is impossible, don't worry as they always seem to get there somehow. If placing a bin on hard-standing, be prepared to hose the area down quite regularly as fluids will leak from the bottom of the bin; this is normal and nothing to worry about, but can be messy and unsightly.

Rats?
If you have a rat problem in your garden, you may wish to stand the bin on chicken wire to prevent them gaining access. A well-managed compost system will not attract rats, but if there are already rats in the area, they will visit it. For more on rats, see the troubleshooting section.

In theory, anything that was once living can be composted. But in practice, some restrictions are necessary to prevent rodent and disease problems.

• Don't compost: meat; fish; bread; anything cooked e.g. pasta, rice; dairy produce; cat and dog faeces; dirty nappies.
• Greens and browns: good compost is a mix of nitrogen-rich materials (called greens) and carbon-rich materials (called browns). You need about half of each; so for each bucket full of greens you add to your heap, you need to balance it with a bucket full of browns. Too much of either will lead to problems - see the troubleshooting section below.
  • Greens: some examples of nitrogen-rich green materials are grass clippings; raw vegetable waste from your kitchen; comfrey leaves; green prunings; urine; poultry manure; manure from any vegetarian pets such as hamsters and guinea pigs.
  • Browns: some examples of carbon-rich brown materials are twiggy prunings; dead annual plants in autumn; straw and wood shavings; cardboard; paper.
• Fallen leaves: if you only have a few leaves falling on your space in autumn then these can be added to your compost and count as a brown material. However, once you have enough to fill a black bin liner then these should be processed separately into leaf mould. Stab a few holes in the bin liner with a garden fork. If the leaves are dry, add some urine, water or a large handful of grass clippings. Mix well and store in a quiet corner for at least a year to produce a wonderful mulching material and free seed compost.

A common situation is to obtain a dalek bin from the council and start adding materials. The bin never seems to fill up and you never collect any compost. What you need to do is stop adding materials at some point and leave well alone for around 12-18 months. You should then be able to harvest usable compost. Meanwhile, buy or build a new bin and start again. However, this system is slow and you will need at least 2 bins although 3 is better.

You may have heard or read articles telling you to turn your compost regularly. Compost can be made in as little as 6 weeks in summer if it is turned regularly, but not many people have the time for this intensive system.
It's okay to adopt a hybrid method. Once you have decided to stop filling your bin, turn all the contents into a new bin or space. Water it thoroughly and cover. Leave this is mature for about a year. If you have the inclination to turn it again in this time, go ahead. Each turning will speed things up a little.

Tumblers: you may have seen these expensive bins in some catalogues. They do work really well and if you get the green/brown balance right they make excellent compost very quickly.

Hints and tips

• Mix ingredients well: try especially to avoid lumps of grass clippings and shredded paper.
• Compost needs water: it should be the wetness of a wrung-out sponge.
• Keep your heap covered: this will keep moisture in and prevent rain washing all the nutrients out.
• Compost bins do not need holes in the sides. Air can easily penetrate a properly made compost heap. If you have a bin with holes in the sides, or want to make one from pallets, line the bin with cardboard to help insulate it.
• Try to avoid adding weed seeds, the roots of perennial weeds, and any plants with soil-borne diseases such as clubroot and onion white rot. Luckily, most plant diseases are air-borne and do not cause a problem. But if in doubt, leave it out!
• Once you have some compost, make sure to use it; apply it to your ground before growing 'hungry' crops such as potatoes and the cabbage family. It can also be mixed with multi-purpose compost from the garden centre to add extra nutrients for crops in pots such as tomatoes and cucumbers. Use about a third home-made compost to two-thirds bought-in.