Reply To: Municipal compost

[Gary.J.Kelsey]

Hello Mateo

Most municipal compost (from my understanding and experience) , which is from household garden waste collected by the council, here in Stafford in brown wheelie bins, is then received by private companies and turned into usable compost.

You can buy different grades, i.e. 10mm or 20mm, which goes through a grader. You also receive them at varying states at decomposition. My first load was well composted, low in temperature and full of banding worms. My latest load was very hot, more twigs and covered in tiny flies.

The biggest draw back in my mind, is you do get tiny stones, dependent on the grade you buy and I find that annoying from a visual perspective, and I guess even at 19mm stone could fork a carrot?

I found my local supplier when I took up my allotment, as I was asking for compost sources. A company called Mill Farm just outside of Stafford. I bought 8 tonnes (20mm) at £12 per tonne, delivered to my plot by tractor and tipping trailer, straight on to my plot (lucky I am I know).

In between my two loads, a contractor who works for me, talked about another supplier he uses. This was not delivered, but was free. I collected it with a very small trailer (due to not having a big towing licence), and was loaded by one of the machines. However, this was a lot of hassle, petrol, time, 16 mile round trip, scraping compost out of trailer, and would have taken 8 trips for same tractor and trailer load, no hassle.

In the process on trying to find a contact for my second supplier, I did stumble upon a composting spreadsheet, but I can find the source now. Hopefully it opens okay on this site.

All the best
Gary