Don’t believe everything you hear when it comes to composting. Here’s 5 common composting myths with some surprising truths!

Myth #1: Composting smells

People think that a composter is guaranteed to cause a bad odour. The truth is that compost doesn’t always smell – and if bad smells do arise can be quickly banished. For example, if your compost smells of rotting vegetables or rotting eggs, then is probably due to too little oxygen in the mix. Simply turn your compost pile to get more air get into it and the problem should go away.

Another common complaint is your compost smells of ammonia. In this case you probably have too much green material in the mix (e.g. grass clippings, veg peelings). If you add more brown material to the mix to (e.g. cardboard, dried leaves) before long it will be smelling sweet again.

Myth #2: Compost bins attract rats

Often people will avoid composting because they think that it will attract rats – but that’s far from certain. Just like some people rats and mice are on the lookout for a nice meal and some peace and quiet. To keep these unwanted furry visitors away reduce the amount of rat friendly food in your heap and keep the heap well used and busy. Avoid adding cooked food and items like bread, meat and dairy to your compost too, and keep it nice and damp. With these simple steps they’ll probably go elsewhere.

Myth #3: A compost heap takes up lots of space

People are often put off composting because they don’t think they have the space. But composting can take up really as much or as little space as you’d like it to. It’s true that bigger sites can take up large areas of space and create high volumes of the lovely black stuff. However, there are lots of other non-traditional ways to compost in small spaces too (e.g. wormeries, bokashi) – take a look at our previous blog post here: https://recycleforgreatermanchester.com/composting-in-small-spaces/

Myth #4: I use fertiliser on my garden, so I don’t need compost

You may be using fertiliser to feed your plants but adding compost too has so many extra benefits. Compost adds organic material to your soil, improving soil structure, increasing water retention and reducing erosion by surface water runoff. Compost also acts as a slow-release fertiliser, as it continues to break down when added to your soil, providing the nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium that your plants thrive on. Compost-fed gardens tend to have fewer problems with disease and pests and much better yields.

Myth #5: Creating compost is too complicated, and too much like hard work!

Making compost is a natural process that is easy to reproduce at home. Everything composts down eventually – think leaves on a forest floor. Your job is to speed along the process and make sure it happens as effectively as possible. You’ll just need to make sure you follow 3 simple rules: have a good balance of green and brown materials (2-3 parts brown or dry material (cardboard, dried leaves) to 1 part green or wet material (kitchen scraps, grass clippings, weeds); keep it damp but not soggy and keep it aerated (either by turning with a fork or use a compost tumbler).

The group enjoyed a virtual recycling session with our Education team enabling them to be eligible to enter the quiz and with the highest number of students going online and taking part they were announced as our March winners. 

Each student who took part has received prizes which includes a reusable bag, reusable water bottle and recycled pencil.  

Congratulations to Rochdale Rangers! 

Are you looking to book a virtual session? You can do so by visiting this page on our website. 

If you haven’t already why not test yourself by taking part in the quiz today. 

Congratulations to Abbie and her younger brother Max who are March’s gallery winners.

Abbie, aged 7, and Max made a castle from cardboard boxes, paper, parcel tape, toilet rolls and ice lolly sticks. We think it’s a palace fit for a Recycle-King!

Our Recycle for Greater Manchester gallery has had lots of entries over the last few months from children across the city-region.

Do you want to share a recycling project with us?

Take a photo of something your child has done relating to recycling at home – it could be a picture or poster, a poem, or a sticker. It could even be a photo of your recycling bins being used correctly at home.

We will display their work in our gallery and once a month a winner will be chosen from all the entries in each month. Please upload a landscape photograph.

A massive round of applause for Alice, aged 7, who is February’s gallery winner.

During her time at home Alice has designed and created a fantastic six-hole crazy golf course made out of rubbish.

Alice will be receiving a recycling superhero teddy soon as her prize.

If you or someone you know is interested in entering a piece of “rubbish” artwork please visit our website to find out more.

Property has been destroyed and homes have been seriously damaged nearly 800 times a year as a result of faulty or mistakenly used electrical appliances, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) has revealed.

These fires have led to a total of 218 people recorded as having been injured as a result over the past three years – an average of 73 people a year.
Analysis of incidents over the past three years (April 2017 to March 2020), has shown an average of 786 fires a year were traced to a cause involving electrical equipment.

They include:

• 409 fires caused by faulty wiring, cabling and plugs
• 111 fires caused by electric lighting
• 96 fires caused by heaters, fires or heating equipment
• 82 fires caused by washing machines and tumble or spin dryers
• 59 fires caused by power generation equipment, such as batteries or generators
• 29 fires caused by fridge/freezers, dishwashers and kettles

The figures – released on Monday 23 November to mark the start of national Electrical Fire Safety week – include faults with the electrical appliances and related causes, such as faults with the wiring and with the way the appliance has been used, for example by a heater catching light to furniture or food setting light in a microwave oven.

The impact of these fires can be very serious.

Although in most cases the fire was contained in the room where it started, in seven per cent of cases the fire had spread beyond the room where the fire started, and in three per cent of cases it affected the whole building.

As part of their incident log GMFRS records whether anyone in the property suffered injury, but the seriousness of the injury is not recorded because this is a judgement of the NHS staff who treat the victims.

GMFRS Head of Prevention, Paul Duggan, said: “Faulty electrical equipment, loose wiring, frayed cabling and overloaded sockets can all spark a fire.
“In addition, the way electrical appliances like heaters are used can set light to whatever is next to them – such as curtains, furniture or your own clothing.
“And the contents of something like a microwave oven or a tumble dryer can set light and spread if it is set too hot or runs for too long.
“It’s particularly important to check the safety of electrics at this time of year, when people may be using an electric heater for the first time this winter, or they may be plugging in items like Christmas lights which have been in storage for a year.”

Electrical Fire Safety week is led by the charity Electrical Safety First, in collaboration with the National Fire Chiefs Council.

They are warning this year to beware of buying fake, sub-standard and potentially deadly electronic items from online marketplaces, such as Amazon and eBay, where a lack of regulation means sellers are not subject to the same standards as trusted manufacturers.

A fire may start in the charger as well as the appliance and GMFRS has recently had to deal with fires that have started in the charger of e-cigarettes that have been bought cheaply from unregulated suppliers.

Recycle for Greater Manchester, which operates the region’s household waste and recycling centres, is also urging people not to place battery operated electrical items in their general rubbish bin.
This is because the battery may spark a fire, even if it is “dead”, if it later crushed or damaged. This usually happens in the waste disposal site and can lead to serious fires.

Recycle for Greater Manchester is asking instead for these items, along with mains-powered faulty or damaged electrical appliances, to be stored safely at home during the current Covid restrictions and then brought to the household waste and recycling centre when it is safe to do so.

Paul added: “Fires in electrical appliances can become very serious. At the very least they will destroy the appliance, but they can also cause great damage to the room they are in.
“If the fire spreads or takes hold it can cause very serious damage to people’s homes. We can see also that they lead to dozens of people suffering a health injury too.
“However, people can take simple precautions that can minimise the risk, by checking over their electrics and appliances, taking care where they buy products, and making sure what they use is safe.

“A working smoking alarm on each level of your home will also alert you to a fire.”
Further information on safe use of electrical appliances is available on the GMFRS website.

Our latest blog post is from Carl of Lentils and Lather eco-friendly and ethical superstore in Withington. Find out how Lentils and Lather is helping the community to use less plastic and shop more sustainably.

We started Lentils and Lather just over a year ago with the primary objective of enabling the people in our community to reduce the amount of plastic waste they produce. However, in the short time that we’ve been open, we’ve gained a lot of knowledge about a whole host of issues and have broadened our goals to include a range of sustainable and ethical practices. These include buying locally where possible to minimise carbon emissions and supporting other local programmes and businesses that have an ethos similar to our own.

Let’s break that down a little to see what we mean and how we address those key areas in our operation.

Waste reduction

Plastic packaging is so entwined with modern life that it’s not until you actually stop and think about what happens to your waste each week when the bins are collected that you realise that something isn’t right with how we’ve been treating this material. Plastic is a brilliant invention, but is there really any need to wrap your packet of pasta in plastic, just so you can take it from the shop to your kitchen cupboard? A shampoo bottle is perfect in the shower as it’s durable, water-resistant and it’s strong polymer structure means it could last a lifetime – why then, do we bin it after just a few weeks?

This is where shops like ours come in to play. You can turn up at Lentils and Lather (there are others around Greater Manchester too!) with your containers, which you can refill with many of the products you need around the home. We buy in bulk and sell by weight, so you can take as much or as little as you need. Our range includes things like olive oil, rice, lentils (obviously!), chickpeas, shower gel, hair conditioner, laundry liquid, fabric softener, surface cleaners, hand soap and much, much more.

We endeavour to minimise any plastic packaging that’s used in our supply chain. For example, we buy things like pasta, rice and lentils in 5-25kg paper sacks, but where we really do need plastic (e.g. liquids) we opt for suppliers that operate a circular supply system. Our suppliers provide their products in 25L containers that they take back when they’re empty to clean, refill and reuse many times over. This retains the value of the plastic that’s been formed in a particular way; it’s much better than breaking it down and turning it into something else.

Minimising emissions

Although we set out with a simple mission to reduce plastic waste, we’ve quickly realised that it’s just one piece in the sustainability puzzle.

One of the biggest, but most easily attainable actions we can achieve is to look at where our goods come from and reduce the carbon footprint needed to get a product from manufacturer to consumer.

Many of the products we stock are made by local, independent manufactures, who provide us with a wide range of things from reusable face wipes, wax food wraps, face coverings, soap bars, plant pots, kitchen cloths/sponges and butty bags.

Food-wise, we stock vegan chocolates that are made in Didsbury, bread that is baked in Chorlton, quinoa and extra virgin rapeseed oil that comes from the Midlands and pasta that hails from London and uses British grains. Many of these products are organic too!

We know that not everything can be made or grown locally, but when we do have to source products from different parts of the world we ensure that our suppliers place sustainable and Fairtrade practices high on their agenda.

Supporting the wider local community

Finally, we’re well aware that there are many others striving to achieve improvements across a wide range of environmental and social issues and we aim to utilise our business to support these however we can.

For example, we came across Chorlton Bike Deliveries towards the end of the lockdown earlier this year and were pleased to hear that there was a group of people offering those who were self-isolating the opportunity to have goods delivered by bike from a range of local shops in the Chorlton area. We made contact with the eco-couriers and signed up to be added to their list of suppliers and help raise awareness of their mission. We also act as a collection point for locally grown produce delivered by Veg Box People.

We utilise our buying power to make regular donations to a charity that supports vulnerable and disadvantaged adults as well as collecting empty crisp packets for a guide dog charity who generates a revenue stream by sending them to Terracycle.

Finally, we’ve just launched our own loyalty card where customers can claim a number of rewards, one of which is a contribution to City of Trees – a Greater Manchester project that’s transforming unloved woodlands and aiming to plant 3 million trees in our locality.

The things we’ve mentioned in this feature are just a small example of how we’re setting out our stall and there are many more things that we could talk about that can help people who, like us, are concerned for the environment. Being small and independent means that we’re able to take a flexible approach to how we run our business and no doubt there will be many changes in the future as we learn of new ways to have an impact on plastic waste and other environmental issues.

• Rogue traders are operating in your area
• If the price of skip hire seems to be too good to be true it probably is
• Everyone has a duty of care where waste ends up

Facebook users in the North West who use unregistered waste carriers could become accidental criminals, warns the Environment Agency.

This warning comes following a successful partnership which saw the Environment Agency and Local Authorities across the North West use social media to raise duty of care awareness.

Waste carriers, like other licensed trades, are required to register and operate in line with a set of rules that protect the environment and their customers. These rules include disposing of waste in the right place, storing it safely and keeping accurate records of transfer and disposal. If you fail to do this you could face a £5,000 fine.
Registered waste carriers in the North West have become concerned about the number of waste removal adverts and self-promotion on Facebook and other social media platforms offering to take away people’s rubbish.

Traders illegally using Recycling Centres costs Greater Manchester £5 million a year

If these traders don’t have a waste carriers’ licence, there is no guarantee rubbish will go to an authorised legal site. Instead, it could end up dumped on the side of the road or burned in a field, causing environmental damage. And the person who hired the unregistered trader could face a criminal charge.

Mark Easedale of the Environment Agency said: “Rogue traders using social media to con people into parting with their waste are the new door steppers. People are then discovering their waste has turned up in a country lane or beside the road. These illegal waste carriers undermine legitimate businesses, undercut their prices and blight the environment.

Follow the S.C.R.A.P fly tipping code

“We want people to take three steps to check whether the collector has a waste carriers’ license from the Environment Agency: ask where the rubbish will end up, don’t pay cash and insist on a receipt, then record the details of the vehicle used to take the rubbish away.

“If people suspect criminal activity, they should report it on our hotline 0800 807060 or anonymously through CrimeStoppers on 0800 555111 and give as much detail as possible. Let’s work together to stamp out waste crime and protect our beautiful countryside.”

All householders have a duty of care to ensure their waste is disposed of legally. Failing to meet the duty of care means that people could be held responsible if their waste is fly-tipped or otherwise illegally disposed of. If this happens and they have not met their duty of care, they could be fined up to £400.

Before hiring someone to remove waste, householders should check their credentials on the Environment Agency website.

What is leaf mould?

Leaf mould is just decomposed leaves that have been broken down by fungus.

What can I use leaf mould for?

Good quality, well-rotted leaf mould (more than two years old) can be used as seed-sowing compost, or mixed equally with sharp sand, garden compost and good quality soil for use as potting compost.

Leaf mould that is less than two years old can be used as mulch, soil improver (worms love it!) autumn top-dressing for lawns, or winter covering for bare soil.

Leaves  that will take 18-24 months to break down.  You can shred them using a mower to help speed up the process:

• hawthorn
• horse chestnut
• magnolia
• maple
• sweet chestnut
• sycamore
• walnut

Leaves from evergreens, conifers and pines are slow to decompose. It is better to add these to your compost heap.

It’s totally fine to use your lawn mower to shred any leaves together. Any grass clippings gathered at the same time will help to increase the nutrient value of the leaf mould. However, if your lawn contains weeds, be careful as you don’t want to be adding weed seeds to your leaf mould!

How to make leaf mould

How to make leaf mould in plastic sacks

1. Collect leaves from your own garden or from your street. Those collected by main busy roads may be affected by pollution, so leaves from quieter streets and side roads are preferable
2. If you have a lawn mower, you can use it to chop up the leaves this will make then rot quicker but also adds grass clippings, so increasing the nutrient value of the leaf mould.
3. Place the leaves into a bin liner, wet them if they are dry, then pierce holes in the bag with a knife or garden fork, tie the top loosely and stack the bags out of sight for up to two years in a shady spot.
4. If you have a lot of leaves and space, make a square or round frame from chicken wire, supported with stakes or bamboo canes. Ideally, this should be in a sheltered part of the garden to ensure that the leaves don’t blow away. Make your leaf heap as large as possible to speed up decay and wet it occasionally if it becomes dry.

For more tips about composting, visit our Let’s Compost Now page.