On 03/03/2014 22:43, GMM wrote:
On 03/03/2014 21:29, Tim Watts wrote:
On 03/03/14 20:12, GMM wrote:
The spring is coming and, inconveniently, our LA has stopped its 'all
you can eat' approach to green waste,

So has ours (Rother DC in East Sussex).
I am now suspicious...

Suspicious? Hmm...I thought I was the cynical one! Birmingham here, so
not directly related, presumably.

I can only assume the business plan didn't work out. As I understood
it, the council sold the rights to collect garden waste to a commercial
set-up who would turn it into compost and sell it back to us all. The
problem presumably is that everyone chucks a lot of stuff out but nobody
buys any compost, as anyone who's interested makes their own.

In Belgium they essentially give away their green bin generated compost
to anyone who wants it. You just bring along empty bag(s) on the
appropriate day in your local town square usually coinciding with a
plant fair. It makes reasonable sense to compost green waste in bulk.
The larger volumes increase the heat and speed up the process.

I have had my compost heaps 2m cubes get to smouldering internally once
or twice leaving only grey ash. Most times the internal temperature
peaks at 70-80C and then cools down again.

So now they're charging everyone for something they used to get for free
and it's pretty clear that the skies around here will be full of bonfire
smoke once the summer starts as there seems no other reasonable way to
get rid of stuff. I'm just trying to be pragmatic and get a system
before it's s crisis. In my last place, the compost heap just grew and
I'd rather avoid repeating that.

There shouldn't be much smoke at all from a well laid bonfire - only
flames and lots of them. The material you burn should be tinder dry
before you start a couple of weeks sunshine for light weight material.

Despite the criticisms (interesting to read) of galvanised incinerators,
there might well be a little business in cornering the market in them
just now (for anyone who's that way inclined).

If you must have a monstrosity for burning stuff in then the heavy iron
wire framed things seem to work better and last a decent length of time.
Galvanised steel bins don't survive long after being used.

Sounds like it's time to dig a hole....

If you have a garden large enough to fill a couple of green bins then
you should be able to make and use the compost. Unless of course your
garden consists entirely of manicured lawn and nothing else.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown