In this series:

Part 1: Dublin waste problem

Part 2: Crampton Buildings community composting story

Part 3: What next for the Crampton buildings scheme

Part 4: Frequently asked questions about vermicomposting

Part 5: Frequently asked questions about community composting

Part 6: Other community composting resources

IPCC Community composting & wildlife Gardening Resources

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Worm Composting: Winning the Battle Against Waste

Crampton Buildings Residents Community Composting Project

By Sadhbh O' Neill

Part 1: Dublin's growing waste problem

We hardly need to read the newspapers to learn about Dublin's growing waste problem. In Temple Bar at least, we are confronted with wheelie bins on every footpath, full to the brim, and everywhere else, bin day is a spectacle of mountains of plastic bags and litter. We produce collectively as a nation an enormous amount of waste and it is growing all the time. In the Dublin region, over 3 million tonnes of waste is produced annually, and 300,000 tonnes of this is household waste, representing 13% of the total. 166,000 tonnes of this is from the Dublin Corporation area, representing just over 3,000 tonnes of household waste a week. In Temple Bar, just 8% of the waste comes from people who actually live here.

Crampton Buildings Temple Bar

At the moment, virtually all of it goes to landfill, and recycling rates are low. Our reliance on landfill has become a huge environmental problem. The landfill sites which have historically taken Dublin's waste are full, and some are now closed or are about to close. The remaining landfill at Ballealy in Rogerstown North County Dublin is already huge and sited in an important estuary, which it is polluting. We are also shipping huge quantities of waste outside the city into other counties such as Kildare ­ and imposing our problem on other communities. It is likely that this landfill will be extended further to accommodate yet more waste, and meanwhile the Corporation and the other Dublin authorities have drawn up plans for thermal treatment and new landfill space will also be needed to accommodate other wastes and also incinerator ash in the future.

Yet the historical reliance on putting unwanted rubbish in the ground, or in the sky, is now an unacceptable way to think about waste, and its also illegal. Landfill creates huge environmental problems ­ even sites engineered to the highest standards can leak out a toxic leachate into the groundwater. Using land for this purpose displaces other uses, especially agricultural, and creates nuisances for nearby residents in the form of traffic, litter, noise, rats and smells. Because the engineering of landfills to make them environmentally safer is so expensive, modern landfills are very big and are designed to last for as long as possible ­ all of which makes them even more unacceptable in the eyes of local residents. Incineration (or thermal treatment) is another high-tech way to dramatically reduce the volumes of waste and to recover energy ­ but it too is an end-of-pipe solution. As long as our waste mountain is growing at 3-5% a year, we are on a treadmill that is unsustainable.

What we forget when we look into our rubbish bins is that waste is a resource. All mixed up in a bin lorry and chucked into a hole in the ground it is definitely 'waste' since by definition it is more or less unusable in that way. But the individual things that make waste ­ packaging, paper, cans, bottles and organic waste are not in themselves waste at all: they are resources.

When you look more closely into your bin you see that your waste consists of mostly recyclable or compostible things:

(Dublin Regional Waste Plan, 1999)

If you add together the glass and compostible fractions, it adds up to around 40%, and that's excluding other recyclable items such as metals (cans etc.) and paper ­ I excluded them because the facilities are not always available. The authorities want us to reduce our waste so it makes sense to start with the items that cause most of the problem or that are easiest to recycle.

Once in a landfill, degrading vegetable matter then typically forms leachate in the landfill which can pollute groundwater and streams, and is also the cause of methane emissions from landfills which contribute to global climate change. Putrescible waste, precisely because it degrades in this way, also causes the foul odours which are associated with landfills. If allowed to degrade in a controlled fashion however, this part of the waste stream can be returned to the soil and actually provide nutrients which are otherwise lost. Organic waste is full of nitrogen and other rich nutrients which the soil actually needs, and which are extracted through modern farming and horticultural processes.

Once destroyed bogs will take 10,000 years to form again

Composted kitchen waste also makes a great substitute for peat moss, the extraction of which damages sensitive peatlands which are important wildlife sites. So if you want to be an environmnetally friendly gardener use your own compost and leave the peat in the bog where wildlife needs it.

How did we finance our project?

We received financial assistance from Dublin Corporation to get our project off the ground. They paid for the worms and materials which came to around £1500. We then applied for, and won, an ESB/CVI Community Environment Award for £1000 in 1999 which paid for some additional materials and tools. We are using the remaining funds to upgrade the landscaping in Crampton Buildings. In 2000 we successfully applied for a grant from Dublin Corporation under the Local Environmental Partnership Fund to finance the construction of this website with the assistance of IPCC.

More . . . . Part2: The Crampton Buildings Story

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