Composting Buddy Scheme

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Permalink Reply by Iris Borgers on February 19, 2009 at 8:06pm

Yes Please
at 170 devonshire Road Nature Reserve's wildlife garden we always need compost!
I Join!

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Permalink Reply by Rose de Falbe on February 20, 2009 at 5:04pm

jThere's a similar problem in all boroughs. Do you think that people linked into Transition Towns would like some such scheme? TT Brixton has a fruit and nut map. TT Tooting doesn't, but they might join in with HF C.a.n. to produce a map of gardens with available crops(later in the year) of fruit and nuts, and to combine it with gardens with available compost.
The TTB map and the HFC.a.n. maps may already be combined. If so, does anyone have a single address from which to download them?

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Permalink Reply by Nick on February 23, 2009 at 7:49pm

Hi Rose
TT Tooting area is already outlined on the TT Brixton Fruit and Nut map - which is now incidentally called the "Fruit and Nut map of South London", so that anyone can add food in South London! You can find it by clicking here

However, note that this map is really just for food in "public spaces"... i.e. people's gardens aren't on it. If it's going to be a public map, that's probably how it should stay. However, we could try and develop a map for compost-sharing / compost buddies, and keep it for members only. I agree it's great in principle to have a much wider and more open group of willing people to draw together, but we may well come across problems with putting people's addresses out into the wider public realm. So for the moment, I propose we try and start it in Balham, and then allow others to copy the model if it's successful.

I will look into it, but please let me know if anyone has the technical capacity to develop such a map, and/or wants to support its creation. Anna - do you?

Nick

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Permalink Reply by Anna Shamoon on February 25, 2009 at 8:48am

i wouldnt know where to start with developing such a map, but would be interested on helping with it. If it would be something similar to the google one above it doesnt look too difficult, i could be wrong!

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Permalink Reply by Diane on February 24, 2009 at 8:23pm

I haven't read all the comments in this discussion but giving waste to someone else to compost is illegal under DEFRA rules unless you have a licence - something to do with animal bi-products. It's up to the person supplying the waste to prove that the waste has never been anywhere near any animal bi-products. We learnt that at a Food Up Front Composting Workshop at Vauxhall City Farm last year. Sorry if that scuppers your plans! Diane

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Permalink Reply by Anna Shamoon on February 25, 2009 at 8:43am

Hi Diane, is this also true for giving someone actual compost to use rather than waste products? Because I know of several community groups that have a composting scheme!

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Permalink Reply by Diane on February 25, 2009 at 7:06pm

I'm not sure whether you'd need a waste disposal licence to supply compost you've made yourself. I had a quick look at the DEFRA website ( http://www.defra.gov.uk ) but I got so many hits when I entered 'compost' as a search word on the site, I couldn't find anything relevant. Perhaps you should email DEFRA and ask them?

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Permalink Reply by Nick on March 2, 2009 at 7:11pm

We've come across this legal problem before. My take on it is that surely this is dumb, given that many councils take food for composting, and there are also many community compost schemes in existence.
One option is to ignore it, and go ahead anyway... does anyone have any good lawyer friends who can offer us some legal advice? Or perhaps we can get advice from WRAP on this - Iris, do you remember what Lindsay said about it?
Nick

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