Green Waste Recycling Project
6 June 2006
By Susan Lynn, Green Waste Recycling Officer
Conservation Volunteers Northern Ireland has recently begun a very exciting large-scale recycling project, based in Coleraine. It has been in the pipeline for three years, with untold blood, sweat and tears spent in getting it up and running (apparently)! I’m pleased to say that we have been awarded funding from the Big Lottery, the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme, and most recently Environment and Heritage Service. We have taken delivery of all our machinery – shredder, tractor, screener, lorry and more and are now up and running, having begun processing last month. It’s very exciting and something we feel privileged to be involved in from such an early stage.
The project has two different strands – firstly, we will be recycling all of Coleraine Council’s green waste, including what you would bring to your local civic amenity site – which will amount to approx. 4500 tonnes per year. This is beneficial to the council as it diverts this waste from landfill – helping them to reach their Northern Ireland Waste Management targets and great for us as it brings in much needed revenue and means Conservation Volunteers is leading the way with yet another worthwhile environmental project.
Secondly we will be operating a kerbside collection scheme around some of our local housing estates, and we are hoping this will generate about 500 tonnes per year. We will be working with a team of volunteers here, as well as involving the community and continuing to bring recycling to people’s attention.
Now that the actual construction of the site is completed we have been able to begin chipping – quite a daunting task as we have 4500 tonnes of green waste waiting to be processed. One of the main problems with this is the level of contamination present. People tend to throw everything into the green waste skip at the civic amenity site and while we can deal with this problem by turning away waste coming into our site, it’s the volume already there which creates the problem for us. We’re dealing with this by keeping a careful eye on what we are putting into the chipper, and if contamination does get through we can separate it after it’s been composted by putting it through the screener – a machine designed to separate the compost into various particle sizes.
One of our aims is to make good quality compost and develop a range of markets for it. We will be working towards the BSI Publicly Available Specification (BSI PAS 100), an independent quality assurance accreditation awarded by the Composting Association.
Our compost has a number of important uses, such as providing high levels of organic matter and slow release natural fertilisers. Also, using compost as a mulch substantially reduces water loss through evaporation, helps keep the weeds down and supplies soil with humus and nutrients. One other very important aspect of green waste compost usage is that it offers an alternative to peat based composts, thereby reducing pressure on peat bogs, one of our most valuable wildlife habitats.
At the minute we are working to develop markets for our product. This includes working with landscapers, farmers, local golf clubs and garden centres as this is a valuable product in each of these industries. We are also hoping to be able to distribute a proportion back to the householders we have collected from for use as a soil conditioner or mulch.
| Relevant links |
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| Read a composting poem |
| External links |
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| Big Lottery Fund |
| The Landfill Tax Credit Scheme |