Allotment holders
are often very adept at using and recycling material that otherwise would end
up in landfill. Often you look and see ingeniously built sheds, greenhouses, cold
frames and the current flavour of the month raised beds are certainly using
much timber which may otherwise have been burnt or discarded. We see old
builder’s netting being recycled, used scaffold boards, skips turned into a
wide variety of objects, scaffold poles, wooden pallets and used water
dispensers converted into cloches.
Some often collect
material for that rainy day and often the intent to reuse it tomorrow avoids
the thought of buying new. Allotment holders are in the main a very resourceful
and inventive bunch.
There comes
a time when that scaffold plank becomes rotten, that plastic sheet or tarpaulin
has come to the end of its life, those plastic pots and containers are too many
to use and need culling, that netting no longer is capable of keeping out the
birds, those empty plastic bags of compost become a mountain with no useful
purpose. What happens then?
Some sites
hold an annual ‘amnesty’ and in comes the skip and out it goes overflowing with
every conceivable piece of rubbish that every lived on the site. This provides
a great vent but is it the right approach and does it reward good housekeeping,
or simply perpetuate bad or questionable hoarding?
For the
last three years we have not had a skip on the site, and yes some have complained.
The skips were filled not just with junk but much green material and instead of
encouraging composting we were in fact encouraging the opposite. The other
question we faced was why we were paying for a skip that was often used by the
same folk to clear out their unwanted stuff whilst others continually disposed of
theirs and ended up subsidizing the few? Skips are no longer cheap and as they
can’t be housed within our fence, we also found that they invited a host of
local tippers and grew mysteriously full if left overnight.
‘You give
us dogs a bad name and everyone goes on about our poo. Just look at the mess
around here after a weekend.’ Lottie lifts her nose and scans the park with litter
scattered all around.
‘I am just
grateful I don’t have to pick all that up as well,’ I reply.
She says. ‘You
would need a few poo bags to do that.‘
I look over
to the farm entrance and see two compost bags sitting next to the bin and walk
across to find that they are full, or appear to be full of ‘green stuff’, plus
some old plastic grow bags and a odd used bug spray and
clearly this rubbish is off the plots.
We walk towards the plots and there outside on the other
side is more mixed rubbish dumped in the overgrowth as if it would just
disappear and be hidden by the grass and weeds.
Of course, no one knows whose rubbish it is, or when it was
dumped. The only thing that is certain is that we will have to move it. What is
galling is that the individual items could have easily been taken home and put
into the refuse. There is no great single mountain but lots of small items.
This kind
of dumping has always happened and even took place when we had skips, but not to
the extent it has happened this year. It’s as if folk have spent longer time on
the plots during lockdown and decided to have a Spring clean. Some of the
rubbish mixed in with the green waste is certainly past its sell by date and
was probably hiding at the back of the shed refusing to come out.
There are
therefore two interlinked but separate issues, the disposal of rubbish and the
recycling of compostable materials.
The easier of
the two is the rubbish. When we get back into plot inspections we can focus on
the storage of excess junk which is not being used; wood, metal, boards, tanks etc.
This we ask is disposed of at home not on the farm, not in the public bins set
aside for normal rubbish but taken home and disposed of correctly. In fact
doing this on a regular basis soon gets on top of this and is far better than
the Spring clean. Good Site Management will also ensure stockpiles of rubbish
are kept on top of. What’s inside the shed is not our concern but what is
outside is.
Obviously,
anyone found fly tipping on the farm or outside the allotments may find their
actions have consequences.
Composting
of green materials is a given to many but not to all. We even provided some communal
bins last year and frankly little thought was given to what went in them and we
failed to educate and control their use. We learnt the hard way that communal composting
is hard as often there is always one that doesn’t think or know better and puts
in unsuitable materials, unchipped wood, hard to breakdown materials etc. into
the bin, fills it to the brim and walks away.
Last week
we had green allotment waste in two large plastic compost bags tossed onto farmland.
We had to retrieve it and interestingly it fitted nicely into the communal compost
bins!
Allotment
fires have always been an emotive issue with some defending their right whilst
others objecting to the smoke in what is a open area. Fires are currently
banned because of the respiratory nature of the current virus but you can see
piles of material that could be composted sitting waiting for the ban to be
lifted. Fires will have to be collectively discussed once we return to
normality and potential time and month restrictions will be sought by some,
whilst others may want a total ban and some fires all year round.
Yesterday I
had a long telephone call within the Cabinet Head of Environment and Public
Realm, or to you and me Refuse and Environment. They were very responsive to
suggestions made which included issuing a compost bins, wormeries and brown
household buckets to each plot as part of the plot’s inventory. We can then
actively edcucate, demand and promote composting. We also discussed how we could
potentially have access to the Borough’s recycled compost, leaf mould,
chippings etc and much more. We are not a council run site and are self-managed
but with a 99 year lease they see us a sustainable environmental opportunity in
which to create pilots, hold joint educational programmes and promote best
practice.
So as I read
the front page of yesterday’s paper and Boris’s plea to clean up Britain, I say
yes we can do our bit. Hopefully we can start to address the causes and not
just today’s visible symptoms.
