Composting refuse could save $400,000

Press, 20 September 1980, Page 5

Composting refuse could save $400,000

Composting of refuse could save $400,000 a year in the cost of processing rubbish, the. Canterbury branch of the Soil Association has been told. Mr " Peter Brown, who has spent several years composting refuse, in tips, told a meeting of the association that about half of the cost of running the proposed three refuse transfer stations would be in providing -cover material. This would not be needed in composting. ■Mr Brown will make submissions to the hearing on the proposed landfill site at Waimairi Beach suggesting. -that composting be used at each transfer station.

He said that between 60 and 80 per cent of refuse could be used for composting. At transfer tions in industrial areas the compost would be made in seven-metre high silos. The remaining 20 to 40 per cent of refuse

would not be organic ttnd would not need to be covered.

The compost would stay in the silos for six months. It could then be sold or dumped. Because there would be no risk of the resultant compost polluting underground rivers it could be dumped anywhere. The Metropolitan Refuse Committee need not be restricted to its choice of Waimairi Beach for a landfill, Mr Brown said. The compost could also be used for other purposes instead of soil, such as topdressing playing fields, he said.

Composting would decrease the volume of rubbish by at least 20 per cent, Mr Brown said.

A Lincoln College report on a sample of Mr Brown’s compost made at the Waimairi tip described it as “a highly fertile, organic rich topsoil rather than compost.”