Community Composting 

What is it? ~ Sites ~ Operation ~Income ~ How much is collected? ~ Education and Training  

Lochaber is leading the way in this important complement to home composting for our rural communities.

What is Community composting and why is it important?

Community composting is getting together to establish a composting operation at village level.

Community composting keeps green waste local and makes it into useful compost.

When it comes to recycling and reprocessing, Highland, and especially Lochaber, is usually hampered by its remote geographic location. However, the collection of organic waste is the one area where Lochaber has an advantage. Most villages have available space to set aside an area for community composting, avoiding pollution from landfill and transport, and saving costs.

Community composting can supplement home composting. While home compost bins can take kitchen waste and a good amount of garden clippings, a community site can handle the larger volumes that are difficult to deal with at home.

Sites

Lochaber Environmental Group coordinates four community compost sites in Lochaber atAcharacle, Glencoe, Kinlochleven and Strontian.

All the sites were established by LEG, with Kinlochleven being the first in 1999. Glencoe was started in 2005, Strontian in 2006 and Acharacle in 2008.

How do community sites operate?

Each site is operated by a group of volunteers and a contractor who is paid for approximately 1 days work per week.

Individual sites are provided with basic tools and share the use of a chipper to deal with heavier materials. LEG has an insurance policy covering all sites and holds an exemption from waste management licensing through SEPA.

Support from the local communities has been paramount to site success:

• Glencoe Community Council has provided backup for the Glencoe site and it now features on their website www.glencoe-glenetivecc.org
• The Strontian site has been managed by the Sunart Community Compost Group
• Acharacle Community Company run the Acharacle site
• Kinlochleven

Take part by contacting the coordinators at your local site:

LEG is indebted to Alcan at Kinlochleven, the Forestry Commission at Acharacle and Strontian, and Hugh MacColl at Glencoe who have made ground available for the sites at no cost to the community.

Income
As the co-ordinator of the community sites, LEG receives payment from the Highland Council for each tonne of garden waste collected because this prevents it going to landfill. Green waste in landfill produces methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming; our local sites are therefore helping in the Highland effort to meet the stringent targets established for Scotland, calling for 70% of our waste to be recycled or composted by 2025.

How much compost is being collected?
The amount of compost collected in 2007-08 was almost double that collected in 2006-07
(68.8T compared with 39T); the table below (Figure 1.) gives detail of the amounts collected at each site.

Fig, 1. Table showing amounts of compost (Tonnes) collected at the four community sites in Lochaber from 2006-09.

Education and Training
As well as the environmental benefits, community sites have other advantages; they are places for people to get together, socialise and keep fit! In addition the sites have proved useful for education and training.

The Glencoe the site has been used by students following a course in Environmental Conservation at Lochaber College. Discussions are currently underway regarding incorporating composting experience into these courses as an integral part of land management in rural Scotland.

In Kinlochleven, sessions at the compost site have provided work experience for those seeking employment.

At Strontian the timber for the site was donated and the milling session was run by the Sunart Community Compost Group in conjunction with Sunart Oakwoods Initative as a local training day.