Home composting
Home composting is an easy way to reduce the amount of household waste you generate as well as producing a rich compost which is a useful free resource for the garden and will save you buying specialist products.
You can compost most kitchen and garden waste at home which will save you buying bags of soil conditioner or compost. If you leave organic material such as grass cuttings, prunings, dead plants and kitchen waste (fruit, vegetables, tea bags and egg shells) in a compost bin it will rot down into a rich compost for your garden.
Composting at home also helps to reduce the amount of waste created in Dumfries and Galloway. Households using compost bins help towards reducing the amount of green waste being transported around the region for treatment and sent to landfill.
Get Started
Getting a good quality home-made compost can be achieved by putting the right mix of items into your compost bin, it's a bit like a recipe! Compost bins need a mix of 50% 'green' materials and 50% 'brown' materials.
Green materials rot quickly, are rich in nitrogen and provide moisture to the compost heap.
Brown materials are slower to rot, are rich in carbon and as well as creating air pockets in the mixture to help the organisms living there to breathe, they provide fibre.
Here are some examples of green and brown materials:
Green Materials (50%) | Brown Materials (50%) |
· Grass cuttings | · Branches |
If you need some advice on getting started with home composting, visit
You might even want to make your own compost bin:
