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Involving households in treating organic waste: 
home composting

• Introduction 
• Milton-Keynes: Subsidies and demonstration
• Porto: Hands-on experiment of composting: an essential education tool

Introduction 

Organic waste constitutes between 30 and 40 % of municipal solid waste in Europe. Treating it in an appropriate way contributes significantly to the sustainable management of resources. Compost can be used in agriculture and horticulture to maintain or restore the capacity of soils. In urban areas, there are many examples of selective collection schemes for organic waste and collective treatment plants. Municipal compost can then be used for agricultural activities or private gardens. 

But home composting may seem more challenging in urban areas, where private garden are less frequent. Yet, it constitutes more and more a full element of municipal waste prevention strategies with many economic advantages. While the investment in material is minimum, the direct involvement of citizens in treating their waste significantly reduces the burden of collection and treatment for municipalities. Citizens can use their own compost to fertilise their private gardens or flower pots. 
Therefore, the promotion of home composting is becoming a full part in the communication strategy supporting waste prevention in cities. 



Subsidies and demonstration in Milton-Keynes 

Since 1997, residents of Milton-Keynes, in the UK, have been involved in home composting. They can buy home composting bins from the Council at close to cost price or make their own composting bin. A large information campaign has been carried out, mainly through the Council’s “Messenger” magazine, two or three times a year, and permanently through the Council’s internet site. 

Selling home composting bins

The composting bins are made from HDPE plastic produced in the Council’s recycling factory. The Council buys these bins in bulk from the manufacturing company and distributes them in partnership with a garden centre. This garden centre stores the bins and exchanges them to residents for vouchers that they obtain from the Council against payment (about 17 Euros). 

Demonstration garden

The campaign for home composting is also  linked to wider sustainability issues and promoted alongside wildlife gardening and the need to reduce the use of peat. Indeed, a composting demonstration garden has been developed in an environmental education centre situated in the surroundings of the city. This centre is run by the Council as a combined nature reserve and field study centre. It was built using the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme funding. In this garden, the Recycling department organises free workshops all around the year to teach participants how to do their own compost. 

Results 

Between 1997 and June 2003, 11,000 residents had bought home composting bins from the Council. Each participating household reduces its production of waste by approximately 100 kg each year. 

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Hands-on experiment of composting: an essential education tool in Porto 

Composting: a pillar of the waste management strategy in the Porto Region 

The region of Porto is a pioneer for waste management in Portugal. LIPOR is the Inter-municipal Waste Treatment Service for the Porto Region. It is responsible for the management, treatment, and transforming of the solid household waste from 8 municipal boroughs. This area counts nearly 1 million inhabitants who produce about 480,000 tonnes of solid urban waste yearly. 

LIPOR drafts and implements the waste management strategy for the Porto Region, entitled “ The Multiple Way”. This integrated strategy of transformation, treatment and elimination of solid urban waste, aims at minimising landfill deposits. The approach relies on the 4 R’s policy: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover. It translates into the transformation of waste through 3 processes: multi-material recycling, energy recovery and composting. 

Composting is being implemented since the seventies in the Porto Region. In the second half of the eighties, the old composting plant was supplemented with a second composting line with a capacity of 250 tonnes/day and a maturation park. In 2003, a new composting plant started to be built to substitute the old one. At the new LIPOR Composting Plant, the organic component, which represents about 40% of all municipal solid waste, will be transformed, through a natural biological process and under strictly controlled conditions, into a natural organic corrective denominated compost.
The new Composting Centre will be operative by 2004 and will be ready to receive and process 60,000 tons of organic waste per year, collected in the selective collection circuits. It will guarantee the production of 20,000 tons of high-quality fertiliser per year.

In addition, LIPOR is developing the reclassification and expansion of the current zones of selective door-to-door collection. LIPOR currently disposes of six selective door-to-door collection pilot-zones, located in five cities and comprising a total of 54,000 inhabitants. LIPOR bet in incrementing selective door-to-door collection is part of a strategy integrated in a broader project – “Multimaterial Recycling” – that aims to reach the expected goals for the recovery of packaging waste material.

The new composting facility and collection schemes will be supported with a permanent information and education campaign on home composting. 

Home compost site – Horta da Formiga 

To educate and sensitise the population on the necessity to reduce the amount of waste produced daily, LIPOR set up a home compost demonstration site named “Horta da Formiga”. The objective of this project is to promote school visits, seminars and programmes.

A pleasant area has been arranged next to the new composting centre. School children and other target groups can visit and learn about composting, its advantages and different uses. In addition, a biological garden is grown with vegetables, fruit trees and aromatic plants using the compost produced on the site. 

Visitors enter the welcome room and receive some information about the demonstration site, before they start to follow the “circuit of composting”. It starts with the composting area, where they can see 16 different types of composting bins. So they can choose what type is the most appropriate for them. Then come the maturation, screening and bagging of compost. Finally they walk through the vegetable garden, the orchard and the aromatic garden. 

In addition to the visits, LIPOR promote free courses in organic agriculture for teachers and adults, to enhance the quality of life and health by respecting the ways of nature. 

The home composting demonstration site is an essential tool for the education of the population as it provides hands-on experiment. 

Communication: the key to the success for waste management strategy 

LIPOR is fully aware that the success of the Multiple Route strategy depends on the involvement of the inhabitants. All LIPOR activities are coupled with efforts to inform, increase awareness and form opinions of the public about waste. These efforts are increasingly emphasised, in the direction of both the population and the decision-makers in the different Town Councils. The change of mentalities and a strong ecological conscience are prerequisite for the success of the future LIPOR policy. 

The message of LIPOR: “the participation of everyone is fundamental to a positive future” is being passed around by an Information Office since 1996. The team of 11 eco-advisers have for main function to inform and promote the projects of LIPOR amongst the population. They are also responsible for developing environmental education strategies, with a particular focus on the school community. 

The Information Office has developed a number of activities to work with the schools of the region, in the form of thematic sessions about waste and the environment. Guided tours of the recycling, energy recovery and composting facilities are permanently offered to schools as well as to all inhabitants. A guide is published to promote these visits. 
Other activities include the creation of an Eco-library, the regular publication of a newspaper, the setting up of a free phone line, awareness raising campaigns, exhibitions, workshops on the reuse of waste…

The impact of communication activities are regularly assessed: information is collected by the staff responsible for each activity, as well as through enquiry sheets and diagnostic sheets. These assessments allow to refine the approach and develop future activities in higher adequacy with the targeted public. Despite the difficulties of an exercise of this scale, this methodology already led to significant improvements. 

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