Recycle for Cornwall
The Recycle for Cornwall campaign has been developed to raise public awareness of recycling and to provide consumers with a compelling reason to recycle.

How does it work?

Vegetable peelings, tea bags, crushed eggshells, coffee grounds and other organic matter from your garden and kitchen can be added to your compost bin to create a veritable worm feast. Organisms break down the larger molecules into smaller ones, using them as food. Heat, water and carbon dioxide are produced as a by-product. The heat produced helps to break the material down into useful compost. After a year or so, your compost can be harvested.

What can I compost?

In order to produce successful compost the organisms in your compost need a balanced diet of carbon for energy and nitrogen for growth. Carbon is found in dry woody materials often called “browns” and nitrogen is found in soft wet materials referred to as “greens”:

Greens  

Vegetable peelings
Fruit scraps
Tea bags
Coffee grounds 
Crushed eggshells 
Grass cuttings 
Annual plants and flowers 
Young hedge clippings

Browns

Hay & Straw 
Vegetarian pet bedding
Wood chippings
Wood ash
Hair
Sawdust 
Egg boxes 
Paper towels 
Crumpled paper and card 
Shredded or chopped wood prunings
Leaves
Feathers
Shredded woolly jumpers!
Shredded pure cotton clothes

What shouldn’t I compost?

In order to make the composting process as simple as possible you may want to avoid adding persistent weeds, meat, fish, cooked food and diseased plants. Coal ash, cat and dog faeces and disposable nappies should not be added to your compost bin.

What can I use my finished compost for?

Compost can be used in the garden to improve the structure of your soil; or as mulch around plants, to help retain moisture and supply a nutrient rich food. You could enrich your lawn with nutrients by sprinkling compost on to the grass; this is known as “top-dressing”. If you don’t have a garden you could use the compost as a potting compost or when mixed with a material like wood chips as a growing medium to plant new seeds.

Related pages

How to order your home delivered compost bin.

Further advice from Recycle Now