Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#35
|
|||
|
|||
Composting Tea Bags
"Tim" wrote in message newsprrezn51vwxhha1@localhost... On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 19:58:49 +0000 (UTC), Pat Gardiner wrote: "Tim" wrote in message newsprrdo64yqwxhha1@localhost... On 26 Jun 2003 13:46:11 GMT, Nick Maclaren wrote: In article oprrdgeij4wxhha1@localhost, Tim writes: | | But that was 1999, did they look at the 2001 amendments ? Which to my | untrained eye looks like the 1999 Order has been changed to only apply to | catering businesses kitchens and farms etc. What the order says is that any | waste from COMMERCIAL kitchens can't be composted. So unless you run a | business from your ktichen you're ok. No, that is a tightening of the 1999 order. I read it as shifting the emphasis. | But I don't see what the problem is because the 1999 order applies to | feeding animals waste, not to making compost. I am hard pushed to find any | connection - unless you keep animals on your land, or you let your compost | be fed to other animals. The amendment has changed this to make it clearer | that it applies to commercial waste and/or farm animals. I'm sort of | discussing this with Nick at the moment. Read it again. Look at sections 3 and 5, for example. Non-Vegan kitchen waste is probably an animal product under the order. Sorry, I can't see what you mean. I think it all hinges on the definition of animal by-products: From the 1999 order: 'Interpretation and scope Snip for clarity At the risk of taking this slightly beyond the realms of gardening. There are a number of problems with the legality of compost heaps that we are now encountering. We grow pretty well everything edible and raise pigs, poultry, sheep and cattle - all on a very small scale. The reasonable desire to keep animal scraps away from animals, leads into some very strange country. We now have problems keeping a pig and a compost heap. The theory being that we might put kitchen waste which might contain scraps which might get to the pig. So basically the combination is banned. Pigs or compost heaps, not both UNLESS and we are lucky, you have a separate sink away from the kitchen in which vegetables are prepared. We are lucky, we do. I say "pigs" because we are no longer allowed to keep a single sow (animal welfare). So that is the end of the cottager's pig. In reality that means a minimum of two sows plus one (spare) and the prospect of up to thirty plus piglets per year. We are not commercial, we sell nothing, so this new legislation is causing very real problems. The combinations of restrictions are starting to make our lifestyle impossible. There is no doubt that quite aside from the silly scare stories in the newspapers, new rules are now invading territory that was once the protected preserve of the amateur. I can see that being a big problem. Especially as the concepts of keeping a few animals for yourself and composting are not from a totally different planet. Maybe the bit in the amanement applies -where they use the definiteion of livestock, instead of animal. Livestock being any animals used for farming. Would your situation be regarded as farming or not? I expect it would, as I expect Sod's Law to apply wherever possible. Well, the drafting of all the regulations is pretty anti-amateur. Most offences are also "criminal." Much is left to the discretion of officials, many of whom can be pretty unsympathetic on occasions. Most of the regulations have been though a consultation stage with "stakeholders" playing a prominent part. Most of these stakeholders are large commercial organisations. They either forget the small non-businesses independent man or woman or are pretty openly contemptuous and hostile. A case in point were the proposals for "fallen stock." As you can imagine many of our animals are allowed to live out their lives on our premises. Breeding stock that was born here and given us many offspring become very much a pet. We don't send them off to slaughter, if it can be avoided without cruelty. The first Canadian BSE cow was went for slaughter even though it could not stand. That's not for us. Now we are not allowed even to bury a chicken. The government scheme, if it ever gets going, costs us Pounds 50 a year (the minimum). The maximum for a 3,000 sow factory farm or a massive turkey operation, with many casualties, is Pounds 200 per year. That is simply not fair treatment. The regulations are difficult to interpret and always seem to err on the side of heavy regulation and draconian penalties. The big intensive operators win. Now, this will affect very few gardeners. Most smallholders do sell something, so are some kind of business albeit small. But we sell nothing, just like the average gardener or allotment holder. In case, you think all this is pretty academic, we took a call yesterday from Trading Standards to check their records on what livestock we kept and to check if we had a licence for mixing feed. We don't, since we now stay out of potential trouble by buying all our feed commercially. The days of leaning into the paddock and treating the pig to an apple core or throwing some scraps of bread and cake to the chickens have gone, it seems. The exact opposite of what was intended. Without being an expert on the regulations (who is?) I can see no exemption for an allotment holder with a few chickens to give their family fresh eggs. Now everyone will say, "they could not possibly!" Well they could. A theoretical case can be made because of Salmonella or Avian Flu for the small amateur, just as for the big intensive operator selling to the supermarket. Registration of allotments - and the question do you have any livestock there? Who is your feed supplier? I don't want to be alarmist, but the events of the last few years in the countryside have left many of us badly shaken. Ask them in Devon or Cumbria. It pays to be vigilant, and not all the scare stories are that wide of the mark. -- Pat Gardiner www.go-self-sufficient.com Tim. Tim. |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
home made grow bags using tesco carrier bags. | United Kingdom | |||
Composting tea bags | Lawns | |||
tea bags | United Kingdom | |||
Tea bags and coffee grains. | Gardening | |||
Composting Tea Bags | United Kingdom |