Community Composting Revolution

Nicky Scott, otherwise known as Mr Compost, is based in Devon and for many years has been the driving force in Community Composting across the county. This is his story.

When I started a very small community composting project on our allotments in Chagford, on Dartmoor, I had no idea how it was going to grow.  Initially, I was frustrated, firstly by people on our allotments having choking bonfires all the time. The smoke would roll down the hill and invade our house; not ideal when you have babies asleep inside.

Secondly, in those days we had ‘bulky household skips’ brought to our car park every month, for people to dispose of stuff the refuse collection couldn’t take. I soon realised a huge amount of garden clippings, hedge prunings, woody waste, grass cuttings and so on was being dumped so I called Devon County Council to suggest that they dedicate a skip just for garden stuff to stop it going to landfill and then we could use it on the allotments. To my enormous surprise they thought it was a great idea! Read more