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The Benefits of Compost and Composting at Home

A campaign run by the three Regional Waste Management Offices found that organic and food waste can attribute up to 33% of household waste produced. Disposing of your organic waste correctly can significantly reduce the amount of waste in your general waste bin.

This campaign’s aim was to raise awareness and get people in Ireland to begin to reassess how they dispose of their food waste. Householders in Ireland were asked to consider how they can reduce their food waste and to make use of the brown bin which is available in areas where population centres are greater than 500 persons.

Food waste is costing us roughly 1 billion euro a year. To help spread awareness and lessen the amount of food waste, Barna Recycling have put together a list of benefits of using the brown bin and composting.

It’s Good for the Environment: By following the Three R’s (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle), the burden placed on the environment through pollution can be lessened as it would reduce the level of methane emissions from landfills, lowers your carbon footprint and reduces the need for chemical fertilizers.

Improving Soil Structure and Boosting Nutrient Count: Adding compost to your garden helps to neutralize pH and improve the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of soils, increasing their ability to hold nutrients for plant use. The organic matter found in compost introduces vital nutrients to your garden, including macronutrients like nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium and micronutrients such as manganese, copper, iron and zinc.

It Could Save You Money: If you’re more interested in composting at home than using the brown bin to dispose of your food waste than you may be able to save more money. By recycling your food waste, you can reduce the weight of your general waste bin, which could mean you pay less depending on how you’re billed. Also, when you produce compost at home, you don’t need to buy as much of it as you have your very own source.

The Brown Bin

If you are not availing of Barna Recycling’s food/compost service please contact us 091771619 to request a brown bin and or to check if our compost service is available in your area.

If Barna Recycling do not provide a food/compost in your area, an alternative solution for you would be to do home composting in your garden and /or bring organic/green material (grass, hedge cuttings etc.) to a civic amenity centre.

You can check out what goes in your Brown Bin by clicking on What Goes in my Brown Bin Barna Recycling is strongly in favour of preventing food waste and the benefits of composting. Read our blog on  How to Manage Your Food Waste.

You might also find these blogs helpful:

Stop Food Waste Campaign

The Food Waste Charter Initiative