Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => General Gardening => Topic started by: celjaci on May 03, 2009, 12:12
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All our left overs go to the chickens but friends with a small hotel want to compost their food waste including cooked food.
Commercial rat-proof compost bins or digesters seem very pricey at £90
Any body got experience of composting food waste? Rat proofing a compost bin? Any other system?
Presumably it will need lots of 'browns' adding but they should have shredded paper and cardboard.
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Get your friends to find out if you have any local pig keepers, then do a trade of scrap food for Bacon.
Bob
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Get your friends to find out if you have any local pig keepers, then do a trade of scrap food for Bacon.
Bob
Understood that was now illegal!
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Apparently the Bokashi composting system takes all sorts of food, but is quite expensive and relatively small scale.
You can rat-proof a compost bin by using weldmesh over the bottom of the bin, to stop them getting in - but I'd still be worried about meat or other harmful bacteria not being killed off in a domestic bin. Don' t know enough to say whether those concerns are unfounded, though.
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There is a specific compost bin that relies on solar light to compost it but I just can't remember the name. The lower section is buried in the ground and even meat can be composted in this powerful yet small unit. A restaurant might want to invest in 2 or 3 units due to sheer quantity, but it can be done. To further rat proof the units, I recommend that a ring of weldmesh surround the buried portion and a mat of weldmesh for it to sit on. Even rats can't burrow through that.
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Get your friends to find out if you have any local pig keepers, then do a trade of scrap food for Bacon.
Bob
Understood that was now illegal!
The world has gone mad.
Bob
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The world has gone mad.
Madder than you know. Commercial composters are able to use raw meat in the right process. The snag is the meat must be ok at the start. This means if it is not fit for human consumption it cannot be used. The punchline is that if it has passed it's sell by date, it is defined as being unfit >:(
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Green cone composter have come right down in price they where about £90 but quite often councils will heavily subsidise and even do the hard work and put it in for you. They do need a sunny spot & not in the shade. Saying that all our cooked food waste goes in, bones and all + the dead rodents etc. the cat brings back. All seem to disappear over time. :)
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Regretfully our local councils are no longer subsidising compost bins.
£90 seems really OTT. Wouldn't you think they could make them much cheaperand use recycled plastics - doesn't even need to be a uniform green colour
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Regretfully our local councils are no longer subsidising compost bins.
£90 seems really OTT. Wouldn't you think they could make them much cheaperand use recycled plastics - doesn't even need to be a uniform green colour
Our council have even stopped green waste collections!, but at least it means i get neighbours lawn mowings :)
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Just stuck my postcode into:
http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting/in_your_area/in_your_area.html
and the Green Cone here is subsidised by about 3 quid :( although the big Dalek that I paid 20 quid for last year is 15 quid this - which is good to encourage folk (RRP = £50.00)
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£65 quid now for us, I was lucky tho' I won mine in a comp 8) 8)
Them big darleks I have two of them down the lottie, I wont use them at home every year they become a rat hotel in the winter :mad:
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Thanks Richy. Green Cone was the name I was trying to remember. It's that specific colour to create the solar internal heat. A bit pricey, yes, but friends who have it swear by it and won't use any other. Its all composted in about a month.
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They are really great, they do a green joanna as well not 100% sure what that one does I'll have to have a google :)
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the Joanna is the one for cooked food and there is compost at the end of it unlike the green cone. if they are running a small hotel perhaps there would be too much. Chickens might be a good idea :)
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Them big darleks I have two of them down the lottie, I wont use them at home every year they become a rat hotel in the winter :mad:
A bit of wire around the hatch (and a solid base) stops the rats from squeezing in:
(http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w264/DavidsWine/ratproof.jpg)
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Good idea David :)