WI urges composting to help save our planet
Imagine a world with less methane gas (a potent greenhouse gas with a high global warming potential) and fewer landfill sites. You can help create one simply and easily by – composting! And what better time to start than during Compost Awareness Week in May, which the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) is delighted to support.
From Sunday 4th to Saturday 10th May, the eighth annual Compost Awareness Week is being celebrated up and down the country. The theme of this year’s week is ‘Green up the Environment’ and everyone is being encouraged to make a difference with composting.
Britain produces 10 million tonnes of organic waste every year, equivalent weight of nearly 25,000 fully loaded jumbo jets. The NFWI is backing the campaign to make sure this waste is recycled at home rather than ending up on landfill sites.
Let’s spare a thought for the planet before simply throwing our waste into the household bin. You can make a difference to the environment. Composting can reduce landfill and benefit the environment. Best of all, composting is easy and the bin may be free!
By diverting compostable waste such as vegetable peelings, tissues and cardboard into your compost bin, you can prevent it from ending up in landfill and reduce greenhouse gases. By composting at home you also create your own free-of-charge, nutrient-rich fertiliser that helps keep plants and gardens green and beautiful.
The NFWI is already involved in composting during the first two months of this year as part as part of its 90@90 project sustainable consumption. Working in partnership with WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme), we provided a series of home composting workshops for our members in Cambridge, Herefordshire, Pembrokeshire, Suffolk West, Derby, Ceredigion and Wiltshire.
Through partnership with WRAP, the WI delivered a compost programme to WI members and created 20 volunteer WI compost champions who act as a catalyst for disseminating practical compost advice and demonstrations to WI members and their communities.
Fay Mansell, NFWI chair, says: “The environment is something that our members are very passionate about. Our 90@90 project which has just completed promoted sustainable living among WI members and home composting is a simple way that most people can make a difference. It is amazing how much of our household waste can be composted. For every five home composters, a tonne of waste – the weight of a baby elephant – is diverted from landfill every year.”
WIs across the country, in conjunction with WRAP, will be holding composting workshops for members and the public, including after Compost Awareness Week. To find out more, contact your local WI Federation office by visiting our website www.thewi.org.uk/findyourWI.
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For further information please contact either Shirin Aguiar-Holloway at the National Federation of Women’s Institutes on 020 7371 9300 extension 208, or Eoin Redahan on extension 209.
Notes to editors:
1. The new WIs have been set up in Upton Village (Cheshire), Ebbw Vale (Gwent), Moulton (Suffolk West), Caxton (Cambridge), Parkland (Cumbria-Cumberland), Newstead (Nottinghamshire), Morebath (Devon), Upton Magna (Shropshire), Newchurch & District (Sir Gar Carmarthenshire, south Wales), The Shrubbery (West Sussex), Fishergate & Fulford (North Yorkshire), Cholsey (Oxford), Penrhyncoch (Ceredigion, mid-Wales) and in the City of London.
2. The WI is the largest women’s organisation in the UK with 205,000 members in 6,800 WIs. The charity campaigns on issues that matter to women and their communities from children’s diet and human trafficking to healthy eating and the environment. Visit www.thewi.org.uk for more information.