Composting

What is composting?

Composting is nature’s own way of recycling organic material such as plant waste from your garden or vegetable food waste from your kitchen. Insects, bugs and other soil organisms break this material down to produce compost – rich fertiliser that's great for plants. The composting process can take several months, but will transform plant waste into a crumbly brown material that is pleasant to handle and not smelly!

If this waste is not composted but thrown away, it will go into landfill where as it rots it becomes a source of methane. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, twenty times more powerful than CO2, which is linked to global warming and climate change.

Composting is an essential part of organic and wildlife gardening. Encouraging home and community composting can increase local biodiversity.

If you live on an estate or a block of flats with access to a communal garden why not get together with your neighbours and/or caretaker manager and introduce home composting for everyone.

You can compost food waste from your kitchen even if you don’t have a garden, as many London boroughs run kitchen food waste collection schemes - see the Where can I recycle? pages to find out whether your borough does.

Find out more about composting:

• Getting started
• Making compost
• Using compost
• Kitchen food waste collections