On Sun, 13 May 2012 19:50:14 +0100, Another John
wrote:

In article ,
Judith wrote:

Previous years I had bought B&Q compost ...
This year they have changed the compost - and it is appalling. The bag I
bought was full of bits of wood - some bits of polythene and also white mould
on some of the wood.

I have just tried an Aldi bag - and it is much the same (but cheaper). It
even had a section of an old green plastic plant tie in it. ...

I guess this all comes about by local authorities making "compost" from the
recyclable rubbish. ...

Well it's not "rubbish" is it? It's recyclable garden waste. The
problem of plastic comes from lazy buggers chucking their rubbish (bags,
pots, etc) in with their recyclable garden waste: it is just about
impossible for the compost processing people to "weed out" the rubbish.


What if someone had put some old plant material which had been treated with
weed-killer in their recyclable refuse?

Interesting question -- I always thought that the temperatures generated
in the "council"[1] heaps is so great that nothing (but plastic and
metal) survives.

John

[1] It's not actually "the council", is it? It's their sub-contractors,
on a nice little earner!

I would be very worried about any compost sourced from local authority
recycling. As others have said, you don't know what chemicals or,
indeed, whatever, has been thrown in that skip at the tip.

I've seen knotweed thrown into skips at my local tip. Fair play, the
guys there are alert and if I mention I've seen some, they react. But
I'm not there all the time and they say that with the stuff growing in
the area there are probably people who will dump it there every few
days.

I've noticed over the last few years that the quality of any brand
you like of multi-purpose has gone down. So I now grow everything in
coir which is sterile. The garden gets it's dose of my home-grown
compost (I know what goes into that) as do my hanging baskets and wall
planters. Saves a lot of money as well.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling from the asylum formerly known as the
dry end of Swansea Bay.