Compost

[Dave2002]

It may not be a way to save the planet, but then neither is the current alternative which it is trying to address which is burying the waste to emit methane over an extended period, which may or may not be captured.

The A,B then C argument I put forward above is quite common in planning - unfortunately. However it is also used politically - suppose there is more than one other option, now say C, D, E - etc., where one of the options is to do nothing, or very little. Some of the C, D, E options have low adverse impact. Politics - or maybe just greed, pursuit of money and "progress", allows a form of argument in which all of the low impact options - which either are slightly inconvenient, or won't generate enough "revenue = profit" are ruled out, leaving only the A,B options - which are both acknowledged to be damaging, and then one of them is chosen - not necessarily even the best one from a holistic viewpoint.

[JasonPalmer]

We have a small compost bin in the kitchen which when full I empty into our open compost bins, two next to each other, looking nice from when we had the garden landscaped.

I experimented with compost and found carbon gold seed compost good but I tend to just buy john innes number one from local gardening society shop ( is very near, I push my wheelbarrow to them) ... the general compost gets put down on top of cardboard which we put down on some of the raised beds to kill off weeds and last years experiments.

[oddoneout]

We have a small compost bin in the kitchen which when full I empty into our open compost bins, two next to each other, looking nice from when we had the garden landscaped.

I experimented with compost and found carbon gold seed compost good but I tend to just buy john innes number one from local gardening society shop ( is very near, I push my wheelbarrow to them) ... the general compost gets put down on top of cardboard which we put down on some of the raised beds to kill off weeds and last years experiments.

With the peat ban imminent there's been a lot of unhelpful cut and paste "advice" in gardening columns about using garden compost as a substitute; with care that can work for general purposes but seed compost is another matter - the lengths Victorian gardeners went to gives a clue! The site where I do volunteer gardening has two huge compost bays, and the "finished" product is used in the four planters beside the shop doors but even if we had the facilities to raise seeds on-site we wouldn't use that - far too many weed seeds, despite the heap often getting to quite good temperatures, especially if the farm brings up a load of horse muck, and in any case seed compost only needs limited nutrients.
I managed to get two large compost bins this year so hope to be able to increase the amount I produce, but on my nasty soil I will still have to supplement it with bought in soil improver

[french frank]

do we carry on with imperfect, small attempts all the while trying to find a better alternative, including tackling the many causes of the problem?

Always. We can only make our own tiny contribution, based on what seems to make sense.

The pro-environment lobby can be just as bad as those they are opposing in the way facts are selectively used and then shouted loudly, sometimes aggressively, without engaging in debate.

I agree. The "counsel of perfection" will never be adopted by everyone because "everyone" doesn't care a jot: they have other interests. So don't attack those who do care, who do what they feel they should based on what they've been told (even though it may be out of date: "That was so 'last year'. This year we're preaching the polar opposite.").

[oddoneout]

Always. We can only make our own tiny contribution, based on what seems to make sense.



I agree. The "counsel of perfection" will never be adopted by everyone because "everyone" doesn't care a jot: they have other interests. So don't attack those who do care, who do what they feel they should based on what they've been told (even though it may be out of date: "That was so 'last year'. This year we're preaching the polar opposite.").

You've possibly seen this, which relates to matters above https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...do-differently