Food Waste Composting Project.
July 2012-June2013
From setting up community compost sites to the promotion of home composting for garden waste and food scraps, composting over the years has been at the core of LEG's activities.
This project aims to promote the benefits of and raise awareness about composting in general but especially the possibilities of composting all types of food waste to households and businesses in Lochaber. Afterall, composting is the simplest form of recycling. We aim to offer easy, workable solutions to stop this biodegradeable waste from going into the bin and to landfill.
We are working with a number of families and small businesses taking part in our food waste composting trial.
New Zero Waste (Scotland) Regulations will require all businesses to separate paper and card, plastic, metal and glass for recycling by January 2014. Businesses that produce more than 50kg of food waste per week will also need to separate this for collection by January 2014, and businesses producing between 5kg and 50kg of food waste per week will be asked to follow suit from 2016.
LEG has received funding through The Highland Leader Programme to run a composting Food Waste Trial.
The project aims to raise the level of food waste composting by businesses and householders.
We aim to run a trial of food waste composting trial using different composters we also aim to capture and publicise data on the quantities that can be practically processed along with the practicalities of fitting this into work place routines.
One barrier to the uptake of food waste composting is that people are not familiar with the technology required and the feasibility of composting successfully. We therefore aim to run a trial of food waste composting bins to capture and publicise data on the quantites that can be processed and the practicalities of fitting this into work and household routines.
To find out more about composting and the different models of home composters available click here.
Click here for a general guide on home composting.
The Trial:
For those taking part in the trial LEG will supply a home composter, one that is best suited to your requirements along with any relevant equipment such as a kitchen caddy for collecting food scraps, scales for weighing amounts going into the composter and thermometers (where relevant) for recording composting temperatures.
At the start of the trial we will take some basic information ie: how much food & kitchen scraps your family produces. We will ask you to continue this and keep a food waste weight log for the duration of the trial.
Visits:
For businesses we can organise visits to see large "automated" food composting machines in use. There are a number of institutions and businesses around the Scottish Highlands who have installed catering size composters over the last few years.
See below for an indication of prices for the various types of small scale composters:
The Green Johanna £108.90.
The Green Cone £79.50
The Jora 125 tumbler/drum composter £299
The Jora 270 £389
The Jora 400 £995
For a small to medium sized businesses or institutions it's also worth looking at the Ridan website. Prices start at £1575 for the small model, with an option to lease at £80 ex VAT/per month. These composters are hand powered and can be located in an outside area.
With support and advice from ROWAN's RUUp4it Project, Dingwall Academy (around 1000 pupils) has recently taken delivery of a mid size Ridan composter. Into this they will put all the schools cooked and uncooked food waste from the kitchen. This will be turned into compost which they will use in their garden and raised bed to grow food to cook and eat at the school.
Prices for larger, mechanical, electrically powered composting machines range from £8,000 to £25,000. Click here for more information on business food composting.
To contact us:
(t) 01397 700 090
email: info@lochaber-environmental-group.org.uk
