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A gardening club of which I am a member had a visit to the plant that processes our local Council's green and kitchen waste.
I'll try to be succinct in summing up the process which is highly technical and computer controlled.
1. The materials to be composted are gathered in a heap.
2. the materials are moved to a huge hopper area and mixed with bits of wood - branches broken pallets etc (to keep the compost open and airated) and also mixed with high nitrogen waste from local fish processors - fish guts and skeletons.
This builds up a tremendous heat which is constantly recorded and the records have to be available to the Department of Agriculture. If the temperature drops below the minimum set - I have no idea what that is, even if for a brief period, that whole batch has to be re processed.
The compost is moved about/turned during the cooking period to keep it airated and to keep the proceess going.
With the fish guts etc, the expectation was that it would be a very smelly operation but in fact there was no offensive odour at all.
The scale of the operation is huge. The machines used to load the compost into the hoppers can shift several tons in one scoopful.
At the end of the process, the wood/ branches is separated from the compost and reused in another batch. Most of the compost is sold to local farmers as a soil conditioner although some is bagged and sold to gardeners. At the time we visited, no compost from that particular plant went to compost producers to mix with their own ingredients although that situation may well have changed.
I'll try to be succinct in summing up the process which is highly technical and computer controlled.
1. The materials to be composted are gathered in a heap.
2. the materials are moved to a huge hopper area and mixed with bits of wood - branches broken pallets etc (to keep the compost open and airated) and also mixed with high nitrogen waste from local fish processors - fish guts and skeletons.
This builds up a tremendous heat which is constantly recorded and the records have to be available to the Department of Agriculture. If the temperature drops below the minimum set - I have no idea what that is, even if for a brief period, that whole batch has to be re processed.
The compost is moved about/turned during the cooking period to keep it airated and to keep the proceess going.
With the fish guts etc, the expectation was that it would be a very smelly operation but in fact there was no offensive odour at all.
The scale of the operation is huge. The machines used to load the compost into the hoppers can shift several tons in one scoopful.
At the end of the process, the wood/ branches is separated from the compost and reused in another batch. Most of the compost is sold to local farmers as a soil conditioner although some is bagged and sold to gardeners. At the time we visited, no compost from that particular plant went to compost producers to mix with their own ingredients although that situation may well have changed.
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