Green Waste

Branches, brush, leaves, weeds and grass - also known as Garden Waste.

Can be re-processed into mulch - great for keeping down weeds and conserving water in summer. Mulchers are available for the home garden, which will generally accept small branches up to 10 - 15 mm (check the manufacturer's guide). Alternatively, make it into compost - a natural fertilizer and soil conditioner - or feed your own Worm Farm (details below).

If you are not a do-it-yourself type of person, there are garden suppliers who will charge you a nominal fee for your green waste, then mulch or compost it for re-sale to others. In some municipalities there are kerbside green waste collection services; alternatively, you can drop off your green waste at most southern Tasmanian waste management facilities- check with your local Council.

Home Composting

Composting enables yard and kitchen scraps to be recycled by breaking them down through the use of a compost system or worm farm. The resulting product is dark brown in colour and resembles topsoil in the case of compost. It makes an excellent soil conditioner for adding to pot plants and for enriching garden soil.

A compost system requires a combination of air, moisture and warmth for it to operate successfully. The air allows the microbes, breaking down the compost, to live and function successfully. A limited amount of moisture is required by the composting process. Warmth is vital in speeding up decomposition.

What to Compost

• Green Wastes: leaves, grass clippings, trees, plan/shrub trimmings, wood chips/sawdust, and garden trimmings.
• Kitchen Wastes: coffee grounds, tea bags, raw vegetable scraps, fruit skins/cores/rinds, and corn husks

What not to Compost

• Chemically treated wood products (treated pine wood shavings, etc) should be avoided as these contain arsenic, chromium and copper.
• Diseased plants, human wastes, and pet wastes, in order to avoid the transfer of harmful plant or animal diseases.
• Meat, bones, whole eggs, dairy products and fatty food wastes should be avoided, since fats take a lot longer to break down, and these wastes can attract insects and rodents.
• Noxious weeds.

How to Compost

Firstly, to prevent materials from being blown away, a container or enclosure of some sort should be used. Local hardware stores and councils can assist individuals with the selection of a compost system to suit their needs. Prices start at around $40 for a 225 litre ready-made compost bin or you could build your own system from materials you might already have.

Grass clippings and other green vegetation (including vegetable scraps) have relatively high levels of nitrogen and low levels of carbon, whereas brown waste such as dry leaves and sticks have lower levels of nitrogen and higher levels of carbon. With too much nitrogen the compost will become too hot, killing the compost microbes. With too little nitrogen, the compost will not heat up. As a general rule of thumb, add 2 - 3 shovels of green waste to one shovel of brown waste to get the right balance between nitrogen and carbon.

Dampen the pile with water as new layers are added or more frequently if the weather is dry. The moisture content is sufficient when the surface of the pile glistens (too much moisture or too little air can create a smelly heap).

To speed up decomposition, turn the pile with a garden fork once or twice a week (some compost bins can simply be rotated to provide aeration) and periodically sprinkle it with water to keep it moist. When the interior of the pile is no longer hot and the material has broken down into dark, crumbly soil, the composting is finished. The complete process usually takes 3-6 months.

Worm Composting

Worm composting varies slightly fromconventional composting in that it relies on the actions of worms as well as microorganisms to break down your food wastes. The resulting product is compost that is an excellent soil conditioner for adding to pot plants and for enriching garden soil. One of the benefits of a worm composting system is that it is suitable for both indoors and outdoors. This makes it particularly appealing to people living in apartment complexes or units, where outside space might be limited, as well as to schools and businesses.

What to compost

• Fruit and vegetable peels, crushed eggshells, tea bags and coffee grounds.

What not to compost

• Meats, dairy products, oily foods and grains.

Suitable bedding material

Shredded newspaper and cardboard, shredded leaves, chopped up straw and other plants, seaweed, sawdust, compost and aged manure, and a couple of handfuls of soil (this aids the worms' digestion of the food).

How to compost

Build or buy a container (preferably wood, as this is more absorbent and a better insulator for the worms. Plastic containers can make the compost quite wet, unless using a purpose-built system bought from a hardware or garden supply shop.

Drill 8-12 holes in the bottom of the container to assist with drainage and aeration (more holes might be necessary if using a plastic container) and raise the bin off the ground, placing a tray underneath to capture excess liquid. Use the liquid as a liquid plant fertiliser.

Ensure the bin has some form of cover or lid, to provide a dark environment for the worms and to conserve moisture. However, make sure you offer sufficient ventilation, so the worms can breathe.

Fill the bin about 3/4 full with moistened (as wet as a wrung-out sponge) dry bedding, trying to vary the type of bedding which will offer the worms a variety of nutrients. Make sure to carefully lift the bedding to create air pockets. This will enable the worms to move around freely and to control odours.

The worms that are best suited to worm composting are the red worms: Eisenia foetida and Lumbricus rubellus. Don't use dew-worms, as they are not likely to survive. Suitable worms can be purchased at local hardware stores.

If you are composting a 2 litre ice cream container of waste a day then you will need roughly two 2 litre ice cream containers of worms. When placing your scraps into the system, lift up the bedding and put your scraps between the bedding layers. This will eliminate odours. The compost bin can be placed anywhere as long as the temperature is between 5 [^] 27 degrees Celsius, but avoid hot sun and heavy rain.

After about 2-3 months there should be little to no original bedding remaining and the contents will be brown and earthly looking. It is now time to separate the compost from the worms. This can be done in one of two ways:

• Tip the contents onto a plastic sheet and manually separate the worms and worm cocoons (tiny and lemon shaped, containing between two and twenty baby worms). Mix a little of the old compost into the new bedding. The remaining compost can be stored in plastic bags until required.
• Move the compost over to one side of the bin and then place new bedding and food scraps in the space created. The worms will gradually move over, leaving the finished compost to be removed when and as needed. Mix a little of the old compost into the new bedding.

If the compost system has an unpleasant, strong odour, then the bin is not receiving enough oxygen. If this occurs, stop adding food scraps until the worms and microorganisms have broken down the existing food. You can also gently stir the contents to allow more air in. Make sure to check that drainage holes are not blocked and if necessary, drill more holes. The worms will drown if their surroundings become too wet.

If you add too much citrus peel and other acidic food, the bedding may become too acidic. This will result in the worms crawling out of the bedding. To rectify this problem, add a little garden lime and cut back on the acidic wastes.

If the food waste is always buried and the bin is not overloaded, this will reduce the problem of fruit flies. Placing a piece of old carpet or sacking on the surface of the compost in the bin will help to further reduce the problem of flies.