Home composting
Home composters are available from £17, £20 and £40 to Solihull residents. The composters are 220, 330 and 250 litres in capacity and are made from recycled plastic. To buy a composter to use to make your own home compost call 0845 077 0757.
Start composting at home by ordering you compost bin at the RecycleNow website
Terms and conditions
- Offer limited to 3 bins per household
- Offer available to Solihull residents only
- Expect delivery within 28 days
- To cancel an order please ring 08001073798 within 7 working days
- Offer available until March 2009, though stocks are limited.
- 1 free kitchen caddy per household with bin purchase while stocks last
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the benefits of composting?
- It is the most efficient and effective way of recycling your kitchen and garden waste
- You can use the compost on your garden, in window boxes, or for house plants
- It provides valuable nutrients for you garden
- It can be added to your soil at any time
- It will help improve the structure of the soil, improve its moisture content and put back nutrients
- It encourages better plant growth
- It saves a trip to the garden centre
Composting at Home?
- Pile the waste up into a heap in your garden on bare soil and cover with something waterproof and let nature do its work
- Build a compost bin / heap. You can make your own compost bin from wood, wooden posts and wire mesh lined with thick cardboard or old carpet. Cover it with carpet, a wooden lid of black plastic to keep the rain our and heat in - this will help increase the rotting process
Using your compost bin / heap
- Ensure that it is positioned on bare soil
- Start to fill it up with a mixture of kitchen and garden waste
- Composting works best at higher temperature so add large amounts of waste, as this helps increase the temperature inside the bin
- If you are able to stir the compost, do so to add some air. Use a garden tool or stick
- After a few months the bottom layers of the bin should look like dark crumbly soil. This is now ready to use of the garden. If there are bits and pieces that haven't rotted, return them to the bin and leave a bit longer
What can you / cannot compost?
Don't compost
- Cooked food, meat, fish and dairy products
- Droppings from meat eating animals
- Magazines and heavily inked cardboard
- Nappies
- Coal ash and soot
Do compost
- Vegetable peelings
- Tea leaves / bags
- Egg shells
- Grains
- Fruit scraps
- Coffee grounds
- Plant prunings
- Old pruning
- Grass cuttings (not too much at one time)
- Leaves (alternatively leave these to rot on the soil)
- Straw, flowers and weeds
- Crumpled or shredded card and waste paper, avoid heavily inked card
- Human hair and animal fur
- Old pure wool jumpers and other natural fabrics
- Sawdust and bedding and manure from vegetarian pets such as rabbits
Where can I get a Composter?
Home composters are available through the council at a reduced price, please see the information at the top of this page.