Compost

Recycling and making your own perfect crumbly compost is a great way of being green. First you’ll need a container or compost bin to keep all the contents together which helps build up the temperature needed for the material to rot down. Make sure you have a good mixture of material – all grass clippings for instance will just make a horrid gooey mess, so add kitchen waste, spent bedding plants or even shredded newspapers and make sure everything is well mixed together.

Don’t compost cooked food, the roots of perennial weeds or weeds that are in flower or are seeding. Make sure all the material are in small pieces to aid the decomposition process. Try to fill the bin in one go with lots of plant material as this will help build up the high temperatures. Cover open bins and heaps with plastic sacks or even pieces of carpet. If you have a lot of tree leaves then it’s a good idea to compost these separately or mix them with grass cuttings to make a lovely material called leaf mould – which is perfect as a soil conditioner and mulch.