Composting is good for your garden and the environment.

Making compost is a natural way to turn your kitchen and garden waste into a valuable and nutrient-rich food for your garden. It's easy to make and use. Compost improves your soil's condition and your plants and flowers will love it.

Composting at home is important, as it allows for any avoidable and non-avoidable food waste to be broken down in your own home and used in your garden, as opposed to being transported to a food waste treatment facility. It also helps reduce the cost for us to dispose of household waste.

Have a look at the Recycle Now website for more information about why it's important to compost.

What you can and cannot compost at home

You can compost:

• uncooked fruit and vegetables and their peelings
• tea bags
• ground coffee
• grass cuttings
• soft prunings
• old bedding plants
• cut flowers
• annual weeds
• paper towels and napkins (not if they have been used to mop up anything containing meat such as gravy)
• scrunched up cardboard
• dry leaves and twigs
• non-recyclable paper
• straw and hay
• sawdust and wood chippings - sparingly
• corn cobs and stalks
• eggshells

You cannot compost:

• glossy paper and magazines
• cooked food
• dairy products
• meat, fish or bones
• pet poo and litter
• fats and oils
• weeds gone to seed
• stale bread

Food waste container

If you live in Bournemouth or Christchurch, you can put your food waste (including any dairy products, meat, fish, bones and stale bread) in your food waste container. We'll take it away and recycle it for you.

Get started with home composting

How to begin your own compost heap:

• for the best results from your compost bin, put it in a sunny spot on well-drained soil
• compost can take 6-12 months to fully mature, so spring is the ideal time to compost
• compost bins need 2 types of materials - greens and browns
• green materials include grass clippings and fruit and vegetable peelings, brown materials are items like hedge trimmings, cardboard and paper
• mixing the contents now and again with a fork or broom handle will also add air and help the rotting process
• cut down on your trips to the garden by keeping a kitchen caddy (a small kitchen bin with a lid) to collect waste for your compost bin
• too many leaves in a compost bin will slow the process, collected leaves make great compost of their own - simply put into black plastic bags, add water, make some holes in the bag, and leave for at least a year
• if your compost bin does not have a lid, cover it with a plastic sheet or old carpet

Your compost is ready when it does not look like anything you put in the bin.