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For Release February 3, 1998
The IPCC Guide to Community Composting which is to be launched this week explains how the recycling of organic garden and household waste produced in all communities can be turned into useful compost to enrich soils in public and private areas.
The Guide is of interest to any enterprising individuals who would like to take practical action for the environment at a local level.
Up to 80% of household waste can be recycled or re-used. The Department of the Environment estimate that only 4% of the household and commercial waste generated in Ireland is currently recycled.
Community composting is the way to help fight the war on waste, create an excellent source of free garden compost and protect precious peatlands. Composting will also encourage wildlife into an area.
Sponsored by The Heritage Council, Cork Corporation and Cork County Council the useful 24 page guide will be distributed to local community groups throughout Ireland and provide practical advice on what to compost, where to set up a scheme and how to organise the local community into a composting work force.
Adopting a "co-operative" composting scheme gives everyone a chance to do their bit for the environment. All kinds of groups from gardening clubs, resident groups to Scouts and Guides can get involved. Community composting benefits everyone as it creates a place for people to take waste if they do not have space to compost at home, pools local composting knowledge and skills and generates a source of compost for local environmental improvement schemes.
The guide produced by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council highlights the fact that everything one needs to make a garden healthy already lies in homes and gardens waiting to be exploited. About half of a household's rubbish is likely to be kitchen and garden waste. This guide outlines how these materials can be diverted out of the waste stream- and so out of landfills- and how a useful natural product for the garden can be created.
In cutting down on the need for peat by using compost people can help conserve Ireland's natural bogland areas. The IPCC is Ireland's leading charity campaigning for the protection of bogs and their wildlife which are under threat from the use of moss peat in the garden. It lobbies the Government to buy peatlands and manage them as nature reserves.
The Guide is available from IPCC, 119 Capel Street, Dublin 1. Price £6.00 including postage and packaging.
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