Tamworth Borough Council has teamed up with Evengreener.com to offer our residents a fantastic range of low cost compost bins and other accessories.

Please visit http://www.getcomposting.com/ or call Evengreener on 0844 571 4444 for more details.

Home composting is the most environmentally friendly way to recycle. It involves no transport or reprocessing costs. You are reducing the amount of waste going to landfill and reap the benefits with an excellent soil conditioner to enrich your garden soil and improve your plants.

How to use your composter
For successful home composting you need the right mix of brown and greens:

Browns are the high carbon ingredients eg autumn leaves, twigs, paper, cardboard, toilet roll insides, tissues.
Greens are the high nitrogen ingredients eg grass clippings, uncooked vegetable scraps, manures, old fruit.

The other things you might need are:

• Air - mix air into the pile weekly when you add fresh ingredients.
• Water - add water to the pile if the compost is dry.
• Place your bin on soil to encourage microbes to work on the compost.
• Mix or layer your ingredients.

How to use your compost
Dig it into planting areas to improve soil structure, fertility and water retaining properties.
Use as a mulch round trees, shrubs, flowers and vegetables.
Use in potting mixes for plants.
Rake into lawns as a top dressing.

Common Problems
Soggy, smelly compost? - add browns and fork over to get more air into the pile. Cover the pile to keep rainwater out
Too slow to rot down? - add more greens and diluted urine (a great activator!) and mix well into the pile
Too dry? - add water and mix into the pile
Flies around compost? - put on a layer of soil, bury fruit and vegetables in the middle of the pile
Vermin? - only use raw vegetable material for your compost. Do not put meat and cooked food into your compost bin