Older people urged to campaign for community composting

Older people in South Norfolk are being urged to campaign in their parishes for more community composting.

The call came from David Osborne, South Norfolk Council’s Head of Environmental Services, when he attended this week’s Older People’s Forum.

At the meeting, he presented Forum representatives with many of the stark choices facing the South Norfolk, and wider community in the next 15 years as it battles to reduce waste and increase recycling.

And he called on Forum members to approach their parish councils and urge them to consider setting up community composting initiatives, like the award-winning scheme operating successfully in Denton, near Harleston.

After the meeting, David Osborne said:

“For years, we have had the luxury of being able to dump all our rubbish in holes in the ground, and then forget it. We don’t have that luxury any more.

“Now, we have to recycle much more, and we have to dramatically reduce the rubbish that we have left over, which we currently send to landfill.

“One of the ways to do this is to throw away a lot less than we do. Another way is to find our own community-based solutions through recycling and reusing this waste. That means more composting at home, but it also means using community composting schemes like the one at Denton.

“Every Sunday in Denton, residents leave out their garden waste, which is collected by volunteers. It is placed in composting pallets in the corner of a field, set aside by a local farmer. When the compost is ready, it gets delivered back to residents who reuse it on their gardens.”

He said any community interested in a community composting scheme could call on South Norfolk Council for advice, for start-up grants and could win recycling credits of up to £40 per tonne of waste collected.

He said the scheme brought “maximum environmental benefit” to the community.

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