Website of the UK government

Home composting

Many councils sell home composters, often at a reduced cost. You can also buy compost bins from local garden centres and DIY stores.

RecycleNow have a step-by-step guide to home composting and also run a home composting helpline:

Telephone: 0845 600 0323

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Community composting

Contact an organisation like the Community Composting Network to get involved in projects which encourage people to compost, ranging from individual promotion to organised collections.

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Green garden waste collection schemes

Most councils now offer a green bag scheme for the collection of garden waste. Although collections are often free, a small fee may be charged.

The link below will let you enter details of where you live and then take you to your local council website where you can find out more.

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Recycling centres

If you don’t have room for a compost bin and your council doesn’t collect garden waste, you can take it to your local household waste recycling centre or waste disposal site, where you’ll find skips for garden waste. Your waste is taken to composting facilities and either sold on or re-used locally as a soil improver.

The link below will let you enter details of where you live and then take you to your local council website where you can find out more.

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What you can and can't compost

You can compost:

• fruit and vegetable scraps
• tea bags, coffee grounds
• crushed egg shells
• grass cuttings, prunings and leaves
• small amounts of shredded paper and soft cardboard
• animal hair
• vacuum dust (only from woollen carpets)

You can’t compost:

• cat or dog excrement
• meat
• cheeses
• fish
• disposable nappies
• shiny card
• hard objects

Animals and kitchen waste

Generally, keeping domestic pets doesn't prevent you using composted kitchen waste in the garden. However, animals like pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, deer or other hoofed animals mustn’t be allowed near catering waste, as they could catch diseases from it. If you keep any of these, you mustn’t compost on the premises.

If you keep poultry you must compost using an enclosed container so that the poultry doesn’t come into contact with it.

Kitchen waste regulations

Food and kitchen waste can be composted at home or at a composting plant. If your local council sends kitchen waste to a plant, you’ll be told how they collect it (you may be given a separate bin or bag for it). Local community kitchen waste collection schemes may also operate in your area.

All plants and schemes must be approved to handle food and kitchen waste by the State Veterinary Service in line with the 'Animal By-Products Regulations'. However, you can compost in your own garden without needing an approval - but you can only use the compost you make using kitchen waste in your own garden.

The wider issue

A third of people who have a garden say they compost garden or kitchen waste

The number of UK households composting both kitchen and garden waste has increased by nine per cent, to nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of the population over the past seven years, and this trend looks set to continue. Over a million subsidised compost bins have now been distributed to homes around the UK, through the RecycleNow and Waste Aware Scotland campaigns.

More than a third of the waste from homes is kitchen or garden waste. Most organic waste ends up in landfill and is a significant source of methane – a greenhouse gas which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a climate change gas. By composting your kitchen and garden waste, you can not only help improve the quality of your garden soil, but also do your bit to help reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

For gardeners, applying compost to soils provides an excellent conditioner and mulch, which fertilises and provides soil structure, retains moisture and can restrict weed growth. Man-made compost is an alternative to the peat-based compost extracted from important natural wildlife sites.

• Waste and resource use
• Nature under threat

More useful links

• Greener garden
• Bonfires (home and community section)
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