paul pettet wrote:
I've recently started to begin recycling everything I can at home,
and was wondering if I can put tea bags on my compost heap. Will the
bags rot down or do I just rip them and compost the actual tea. We
tend to use a hell of a lot of tea bags in our house.

From the Telegraph




Compost could be a heap of trouble
By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
(Filed: 02/05/2002)


THE ubiquitous television gardener Alan Titchmarsh advocates composting and
the Government, it was thought, was all for it.

But in the middle of National Compost Week, it has been discovered that
throwing potato peelings, teabags or cauliflower leaves on your heap can be
illegal.

Composting kitchen waste, as good gardeners have done through the ages, can
violate regulations designed to prevent the spread of animal disease.

In 1999 the Government drew up new rules to prevent the spread of highly
contagious diseases, such as swine fever and foot and mouth, by scraps of
meat - a real fear since the last outbreak of swine fever was blamed on a
rambler's ham sandwich.

The regulations forbid the spreading of compost made from materials prepared
in the same premises as meat on land where livestock are likely to graze.

Livestock, for the purposes of the regulations, include wild birds. So any
gardener who spreads compost made from kitchen waste on land accessible to
birds is theoretically guilty of an offence if he or she does not dig it in.

The implications of the Animal By-Products Order 1999 have been discovered
by the National Trust, which has been trying to find out what it needs to do
to make its many compost heaps comply with the law.

Yesterday the trust announced that it had had to stop using "green"
vegetable waste from its catering outlets as a result of the 1999 Order.

Tamzin Phillips said: "It presents us with some interesting challenges. We
cannot compost the leaves off the cauliflowers, the teabags or the coffee
grounds."

Only vegan households would not be acting illegally in composting their
kitchen waste under the trust's interpretation of the law.

An embarrassed spokesman at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs said the regulations were never intended to cover compost. A "risk
assessment" was being carried out on compost this month, after which the
department would look at the regulations again.

Peter Ainsworth, the Tory environment spokesman, said: "This is another
story of staggering incompetence. My advice is to carry on composting. It is
good for the environment."