On 05/08/2012 18:13, Chris wrote:
Some councils have issued new wheelie bins for garden waste and issued a
notice saying that the normal bin will not be emptied if it contains
garden waste.

Wow! What backwater are you living in that they have only just got
around to a separate collection for garden waste?

Now what will people do if they want to dispose of nasty garden waste
such as lawn mowings contaminated with weedkiller or diseased vegetation?

Makes no difference at the temperature they will bulk compost stuff
everything except a handful of very nasty persistent commercial farm
weedkillers will be long gone after it has been composted.

I put all my lawn clippings on the compost heap. Never had a problem
once it has composted down. Test with mustard & cress seed if worried.

If they put nasty stuff in the garden waste bin - and then that waste is
made into compost for sale in garden centres - will there not be a problem?

Not if they do it right. Hot composting will see of most things. I
compost many more things than my green bin accepts - the only thing I
don't are things with white onion rot and extremely sharp pyracantha
prunings. My green bin is used to make leaf mould instead.

And is it possible, when buying garden centre compost, to ensure that
one doesn't get a compost containing council rubbish?

Council recycled compost is actually not bad stuff at all unless you are
an eccentric Organic(TM) grower targetting the worried well with vastly
overpriced and overpackaged supermarket produce.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown