Industrial Waste or potential compost ?
Regular readers will know that I have recently built a super duper compost heap and have been doing my best to fill it up as it is rather large for the ammount of rubbish I create at the moment. Anyway, I came up with the idea of asking my local florist if I could have his leftover greenary to fill up the bin. A few weeks ago I had a lovely black bag almost full and added it to the compost bin, I called in in Thursday to collect some more, this time the owner was there, he said that he was really sorry but he isn't allowed to give me his greenary as the Council class it as Industrial Waste and as a result it has to be disposed of as such.
I couldn't believe it, Councils are forever trying to get people to cut down on their waste and reuse recycle etc and when you try and do something proactive they have a law against it. The florist also told me that when the Councils waste analyst(honestly !) visited him he stopped him taking the stuff home to compost himself as it was against the law and he would prosecute him if he continued. Apparently a florist in another valley has been prosecuted and fined £70 for daring to take leaves and dead flowers from his own shop to compost.
I would really like your input on this one readers, please leave some comments - have you been affected by similar laws, what do you think of this - should I just nonchanlently walk passed on bin day dressed in black with a balaclava and grab them and run?
posted by welsh girls allotment @ 4:21 pm
8 Comments:
I think you should write to your MP and tell him what is going on!
hmm - this is new to me, i collect veg from a stall at my local market every few weeks, stuff that would normally be thrown away (collected by the council waste)but waste from a florist,how is that industrial? next time i`m down there i`ll ask the stall holder....I dont understand why he cant compost it himself total madness to me...
Truly appalling! I would write to your council, MP, local paper, etc.
Absolutely ridiculous, just another case of bureaucracy gone mad! Why don’t you ask to buy the waste for 1p, that way the florist is making a sale and therefore, technically it is not waste and not of the concern to the council.
I have to disagree with the comments posted so far, and say that there is something in the council's position. Cut flower growers use stunning amounts of very strong pesticides, growth hormones, etc. some of which will NOT be adequately broken down by hot composting. As an organic food grower I would not use a florist's waste as a composting source (unless they were carrying organically-grown flowers exclusively , of course. :-) This is completely unlike the waste you would pick up from a veg market, where growers have to be concerned with not poisoning their customers.
Mike has a point here, I hadn't thought about the muck that they spray flowers with - may be better off asking the fruit and veg people if I can buy their stuff for a nominal price, but even then it could be sprayed with crap as even stuff sold as organic food has a limited ammount of chemicals allowed to be used on it. Hmmm cause for thought here !
Good point, but is that the real reason why the council won't let you compost it, or is it just because it's "waste" from a "commercial" source i.e. "industrial waste"? Is waste from the greengrocer also classed as industrial waste by the council? And what happens when you buy flowers from the florist and throw them on the compost heap once they're dead? Could you be prosecuted for that? If not, the whole thing is nonsense. For that matter if you can be prosecuted for composting flowers it's also nonsense. It's pretty much nonsense however you look at it.
If you choose not to compost them because they're non-organic, that's your call and I respect your dedication and attention to detail. but making it a criminal offence is just bonkers.
I do like your idea of donning a balaclava and ram-raiding florist's wheelie bins. Guerilla composters. We need them now!
Hello from Scotland. Finally found my way to your blog. :)
All I can say, it's even worse when you have a smallholding, croft or farm.
The red tape is never ending, the regulations and laws often contradict each other, and the lunatics really are running the asylum.
All you can do is keep a low profile, try to understand the original intention of the regulation and work within that (if you can), and hope no one realises you aren't sticking to the letter of the law!
As for guerilla composting, I believe you need a large 4wd for ram-raiding. Can I offer mine? :D
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