RICH PICKINGS: Sam Laws, seven, gets a feel for composting at the awareness event at Ouseburn Farm (Picture courtesy of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle)

Newcastle-based green group BAN Waste joined with Recycle Now to encourage people to get involved. They organised two events in Newcastle for Compost Awareness Week, which ran from May 2 until last Saturday.

One was a family day at Ouseburn Farm which looked at the basics of composting for those who had never tried it before. The other event was a composting question and answer session at Scotswood Natural Community Garden, designed to help people who already compost to learn more.

At the family day Newcastle City Council’s Recycling Officer, Mark Manley, explained the benefits of composting and how the city council composts garden waste collected from households in the city to make soil conditioner. Visitors were able to look at the large wormery set up at the Ouseburn Farm and find out more about Newcastle City Council’s EnviroSchools programme from the project officer Alistair Wilson.

Different types of compost were available for people to see and feel and visitors were encouraged not to use peat compost, which is less sustainable. It can take between 500 and 1,000 years to replace every one metre layer of peat extracted in the UK, putting at risk wildlife such as birds, survival. Peat also locks in carbon dioxide, which causes climate change. This is released if the peat is dug up.

Alice Massey from BAN Waste said: “We got a variety of people coming along and a lot of families, which was great. 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 were telling people how they could still compost if they only had a back yard and didn’t have a lot of space.”

“Even those of us who are already composting at home need a little help and we hope to explain why it’s worth trying new things, such as greener, peat free composts.”

At the event in Scotswood there was an explanation of the work Tyneside
Cyrenians are doing to deal with food waste at their hostel, Elliot House.
They have two tumbling insulated composters that heat up food waste and chicken bedding above 65°C to kill off bugs and bacteria. The compost is then left to mature in homemade insulated “hot boxes” before being used on the gardens of Elliot House.

Figures show that although about 30% of people already compost at home, there are other things they could. For example, 60% of people say they have never tried composting general household waste, such as scrunched up paper or the contents of a vacuum cleaner and around 50% of people have never tried using peat free compost.

It is said about one third of a household’s waste can be recycled by home composting. If this organic waste is sent to landfill, it breaks down without oxygen and the harmful greenhouse gas methane, which contributes to climate change, is produced. By composting this same waste at home people can ensure that it breaks down with oxygen so that no methane is produced, helping to tackle global warming.

To buy a compost bin contact your local council. Visit  www.communitycompost.org or www.recyclenow.com/compost

Website review

BAN Waste is in the process of updating our website. We are aiming to make it easier to navigate about through restructuring the pages. We are also carrying out a comprehensive update of the content as many sections are a few years out of date, and as such miss out a lot of the good work our volunteers at BAN Waste have done.

As part of this we welcome volunteer members to write, read and supply information that will help to speed this up.

When we ask people what they want to help them reuse, reduce or recycle /compost we often here we want more information. In order to help in this perhaps people could use the get in touch form to tell us of resources or useful; links they use and pass it on to help others.

In the meantime please bear with us if the website or its pages have a few hiccups and please do let us know.

Directory update

Newcastle City Council has added a link to their newly revamped website for BAN Waste's Reduce, Reuse, Repair and Recycling Directory for Newcastle (this might even be a first!).

So we hope you will also go and look and use it. We have a directory feedback form so you can provide new or amended information and we rely on you to keep us informed.

Compost Awareness Week 2010

BAN Waste is planning to hold not one but two events in the west and east end of Newcastle during the 2nd to 8 th of May:

4th May 11-1pm at Scotswood Natural Community Gardens
Come alone to learn more about composting and possible larger scale food waste schemes?

8th May 2-5pm at Ouseburn Farm
Basics of composting -come and find out why composting is worth it, see the farms new wormery, get some free gifts and play some games.

Basics of composting

We have arranged to have informal talks from

• Newcastle City Council recycling officer, Mark Manley, on why compost; the advantages of reduce food waste and benefit of having your own compost to grow with; and how to make your own wormeries.  He will also be able to explain the council’s green waste collection services, how to get some of the product, a soil conditioner, from the composting of this, & the subsidies on compost bins and wormeries.
• Ouseburn Farm person will tell and show us their new wormery and explain the community composting scheme in place which provides local residents with communal facilities using Joras tumblers and Hot Boxes (you have to come along to find out what these are).
• We are aiming to contact local compost suppliers to have a display of peat and non peat to allow a discussion on the differences and benefits of non-peat materials.
• Facilitate activities such as a looking at different types of compost available, planting of seeds/ seedlings and a poster competition from entries at the event and supplied from local schools.

We will have loads of information, free kitchen caddies, council soil conditioner and a prize for the poster completion as well as refreshments which we hope will persuade people to come along.

Composting Q&A

We have arranged to have informal talks from

• Wilf Richards, a trainer with the Permaculture Network and Transition Initiative Newcastle, and involved in a food growing project. This will look at organic compost and the benefits of making it effectively on growing food.
• The local homeless charity, Tyneside Cyrenians provide gardening courses and community food composting. Yassen Roussev will be able to us through their projects and explain and update people on the current food waste legislation and practicalities of this.
• It is hoped to have a short talk on the BAN Waste wormery project and have a business involved, EAGA, give feedback on the project 2 years in, describing the relationship between themselves and SNCG, who take their worm juice output to use in the gardens.
• We also hope to persuade a local compost supplier to have a display of peat and non peat to allow a discussion on the differences and benefits of non-peat materials.

We hope also have free compost and seedlings /seeds as well as refreshments a further incentive to come along.

Website review

BAN Waste is in the process of updating our website. We are aiming to make it easier to navigate about through restructuring the pages. We are also carrying out a comprehensive update of the content as many sections are a few years out of date, and as such miss out a lot of the good work our volunteers at BAN Waste have done.

As part of this we welcome volunteer members to write, read and supply information that will help to speed this up.

When we ask people what they want to help them reuse, reduce or recycle /compost we often here we want more information. In order to help in this perhaps people could use the get in touch form to tell us of resources or useful; links they use and pass it on to help others.

In the meantime please bear with us if the website or its pages have a few hiccups and please do let us know.

BAN Waste has new ways for people to worm out of waste

The worms have centre stage, surrounded by enthusiastic worm farmers.

One of BAN Waste’s projects has been investigating how to harness the work of worms to use up food waste and make good compost for us. Funded by EAGA as part of a waste minimisation project, BAN Waste was commissioned to place 5 different wormeries in 5 different settings. “We are delighted with its success, and that the number rose to eight – that’s if you include a Bokashi experiment, using bacteria rather than worms to break down food”, said Frances Hinton project coordinator from BAN Waste.

As a culmination of the project BAN Waste held a Worm Summit conference in June 2009 to allow all the worm farmers of Newcastle to come together to celebrate the success of the project and share their expertise.  And it does appear to be a world first as no other Worm Summits have yet to be tracked down!

The project was coordinated by Frances to allow hands on support, a helpline and newsletter to pass on experiences and tips.  She summed up “It's been a successful project and has provided opportunities in the world of worms which could be followed up.  Food waste attracts considerable interest in Newcastle as elsewhere, and wormeries can help reduce transport costs of waste, as well as contributing to a plural approach to composting.”

BAN Waste has since engaged Mandy Roberts to pull the project outcomes into leaflets with project participants top tips and a “What wormery” fold out poster.  We now have printed copies available and have started to distribute these to the worm hosts and some of the local community centres and groups so they can all pass them on.

These complement the more generalised treatment of food waste leaflet: “Reducing your food waste even further” and the “7 steps to Reducing Food Waste” leaflet on how to avoid wasting food that came from the people of Walkerville and Walkergate, all part of the EAGA funding waste minimisation projects.  

Contact us if you would like a copy:
BAN Waste,
C/O Newcastle Healthy City Project,
14 Great North Road,
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 4PS
Email: banwaste@googlemail.com 

A to Z of 'waste': Newcastle's Reduce, Reuse, Repair and Recycle Directory

Alice Massey, above, is a volunteer at BAN Waste and has been part of the steering group coordinating the efforts of the various people involved in pulling together the information and developing the online directory. Alice is also responsible for inputting the new entries that will come from people entering the prize draw.

Our new online searchable directory will be launched on Monday 21st December in time for Christmas and to help you with your New Year resolutions!

We are having a prize draw for new entries, with a top prize of £50!!!

Go and have a look at the directory at: www.banwaste.org.uk/directory.php and tell us your suggestions to encourage people to reduce their waste, repair, reuse things or ways to recycle something the directory does not provide. 

We also have some goody bags for runners up so so keep thinking and please pass on the request for more entries so this can be as wide ranging and helpful (or just plain quirky). 

Contact us with your entries at this email, the form on the directory web pages or by post at:

BAN Waste,
C/O Newcastle Healthy City,
14 Great North Road,
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 4PS

All entries to be with us by January 25th 2010.  Winners announced on the Friday 29th January. 

Happy Holidays
BAN Waste

WORM SUMMIT: June 2009

The first Conference of its kind here in Newcastle upon tyne, proved to be a popular and fascinating event.

NEWS ON WASTE STRATEGY & RECYCLING FOR COMMUNITY CENTRES & GROUPS - READ ON!

Recycling News for Community Organisations

COMMUNITY BULLETIN draft 26 03 09

Next BAN Waste Meeting in

July 2009 Date TBA at Newcastle Healthy City Project, 14 Great North Road.

All Welcome!

The Waste Strategy Consultation Extends Again!

After having to suspend the BAN Waste Partnership with Newcastle City Council in January, over the fact that we were only given 10 days over xmas to respond to their report. BAN Waste were given 4 more weeks by the Environment Scrutiny Panel and were presented with our report 'Aiming for Zero Waste' on March 9th. (Link below)

This excellent 64 page document was compiled by committed members of BAN Waste Strategy Working Group, who were commended for this work by Newcastle City Council Scrutiny Panel & Executive Cabinet.

After this the Environmental Scrutiny Panel made the following recommendations to the Executive on March 25th.

• Anaerobic Digestion should be included
• Incineration should be excluded
• Whatever technology is chosen, a range of size options should be tendered for, rather than just 40,000 tonnes, to allow for changes in waste growth and recycling measures etc
• The council should develop an action plan setting out firm costed proposals for further recycling and waste minimisation measures.

The Executive meeting they decided to delay their decision until mid May to consider all the issues raised!

Aiming for Zero Waste Feb 2009 final no pics

During the process we found out some interesting information on proposals for a gasification plant. See link below for press release.

row erupts march 9 2009