Composting is the process of aerobically decomposing organic waste. The decomposition is performed by micro-organisms that occur naturally in nature. If you have ever left a pile of garden waste at the end of your garden and then gone back after about 6 months you will have found that the material underneath looks like soil and is teaming with worms and woodlice. If left long enough the original pile of material would have shrunk to about 20%-33% of its original volume and would have plants growing all over it. This is all part of nature's recycling system.

This composting process converts organic matter into humus which then feeds the bacteria in the soil which in turn feed the next generation of plants. This process is going on continuously all around us and is what produces the "topsoil" which is the darker brown layer (some 150mm - 300mm thick) that all of our crops grow in. The reason that the topsoil is darker than the subsoil is because of the humus that it contains. In general, the richer and darker this layer is, the better and more healthily the plants grow.

The composting process requires a large amount of oxygen and nitrogen which are also required by the micro-organisms present in the root zone and by the roots of growing plants. Therefore it is much better to compost material away from the soil and then apply the finished compost as a soil improver once it has completed the breakdown process and no longer requires the nitrogen and oxygen.

There are many ways to compost organic material. These include: small-scale home composting; medium-scale community composting; large-scale centralised composting and Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT).

Home composting of garden and kitchen waste is simple and cheap to implement by each household with a garden. Community composting usually involves the collection of garden and kitchen waste from small communities of 1000 - 2000 households. Such systems are often run by not-for-profit community businesses like WyeCycle.

Centralised composting involves the commercial collection of organic materials from large communities like Medway. This material is usually collected separately by the same waste management companies that collect the other household waste. The MBT process is designed to accept mixed household waste and separate out the recyclable materials, compost the organics and dispose of the unusable waste materials. Some excellent MBT examples exist that are capable of producing very high recycling rates and produce high quality compost.

Currently Medway run two composting collections from the brown wheelie bins. One scheme collects the material from Halling and Cuxton and then takes it to Luddesdowne Organic Farms where it is composted in large piles called windrows. Once mature the material is used on the farm. The second collection takes the remaining brown bin material to Rainham, Essex where it is again composted in windrows. The mature compost is then available for purchase by the public at Medway's Household Recycling Centres.

For more information on the various types of composting, click on the links in the sidebar to the left of this page.