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Rev · Joined: 06 Jan 2010 Posts: 186

It would be worth discussing how, as a community, we can work together to reduce our environmental impact...

For starters, any tips on what to do with cardboard? Where we lived previously, the council collected cardboard with the green waste. Do people compost their cardboard here? Any tips for composting cardboard?

voluntaryist.uk · Joined: 23 Mar 2010 Posts: 74 Location: Uplyme

get a garden shredder, shred the cardboard, & work it into the compost, works a treat.

Rev · Joined: 06 Jan 2010 Posts: 186

Good idea - it will definitely need to be shredded first. A garden-shredder sounds like an expensive bit of kit though...

geoff · Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 705 Location: Lyme Rd, Uplyme

A community-owned shared shredder perhaps ?
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Rhodie · Posted: 25/03/10, 15:01 Post subject:

A shredder! How much cardboard have you got? I’ve been tearing up cardboard for years and adding it to my compost heaps. If our concern is to lessen our environmental impact then I can’t see why an electrically powered machine should be our first choice. The cardboard doesn’t have to resemble wood chips to be broken down in the heap. Roughly torn pieces are perfect.

It is strange that a material that comes the way of most of us in considerable amounts is not collected by EDDC. The same goes for that other high calorific material plastic. Ideally the best thing, environmentally, would be to reuse or recycle the cardboard keeping the carbon out of the atmosphere for as long as possible. But just transporting to recycling plants doesn’t come co2 free.

There is considerable interest in using the soil as a carbon sink even injecting tractor exhaust gases into the tilled soil. Composting your cardboard may be a way of doing your bit towards locking up that carbon and may be the best thing to do with your cardboard.

For a list of compostable materials and more have a look at: http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicgardening/compost_pf.php
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Rev · Joined: 06 Jan 2010 Posts: 186

Yes - I suppose shredding the cardboard with a V12 6-litre fuel-injected petrol shredder sort of defeats the object. Anywayz, I'm starting to compost the cardboard - let's see how it goes...

Driver · Joined: 24 Aug 2008 Posts: 106 Location: Uplyme

geoff · Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 705 Location: Lyme Rd, Uplyme

Yes, point taken re community shredder - I just thought everyone might use it to shred their chunky garden waste as well (brussels stalks etc) encouraging composting. Also, we do seem to accumulate quite a lot of cardboard.

I have been avoiding composting it as I was concerned about all the printing ink on the outsides of the cartons.

G.
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GGG · Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 28 Location: Springhead Road

I take my cardboard across the county line into Lyme Regis where the skips in the Holmbush and Charmouth Road car parks gobble up this material as eagerly as newspapers and shredded junkmail, courtesey of West Dorset District Council. Very Happy

Rev · Joined: 06 Jan 2010 Posts: 186

I can see myself doing the 'cardboard run', making it over the border in the dead of night...

geoff · Joined: 17 Sep 2005 Posts: 705 Location: Lyme Rd, Uplyme

But then from an environmental point of view, we'd be better off just burning the cardboard in the back garden as the fuel used to drag the cardboard and the car and you to Lyme and back far outweighs any advantage.

Composting probably is the most ecologically sound solution, the second most freindly would be for the recycling lorry to take it away from everyone. I assume they don't do this as there is just so much of it - but maybe an independent cardboard collection run by the Parish Council would make sense ?

G
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GGG · Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 28 Location: Springhead Road

I need to drive to West Bay at least once a week and so combine this trip with a short detour across a car park to dispense with whatever cardboard has been accumulated. And I leave no carbon footprints on the tarmac since I very carefully wipe my feet after the chore has been completed. Wink

Rhodie · Posted: 02/04/10, 07:12 Post subject:

According to the EDDC website cardboard is not collected at any of the 30 recycling banks and to get rid of your cardboard you will have to take it to your “local” recycling centre. In our case that is to the Sutton Barton tip near Offwell. Does the council really want to encourage us to drive to Honiton every time we run out of storage space for our mountains of cardboard?
What are people to do if they haven’t, perhaps because of environmental principals, even got a car?
Take it on the bus to their local recycling centre?

We are not here talking about a little used material or one that is difficult to recycle but something that even Safeway was recycling in 1960. Why is our district council dragging its heels?
Geoff is probably correct in saying that, “ I assume they don't do this as there is just so much of it”. Precisely the reason that the collection of it should be organized. Why is it that when it comes to environmental issues this country is way behind other developed countries?
It has been said that if it weren’t for the European Union rulings on recycling we still wouldn’t be recycling.

We are lucky in being so close to Lyme with West Dorset’s more practical attitude to cardboard collection. Isn’t it time that EDDC recognized this and recommended that we follow GGG’s example and use Lyme’s skips – but only when making the trip for other reasons - or would that means making a financial contribution to WDDC?
Probably cheaper than arranging door to door collections.

Geoff in his wisdom also suggests that, “maybe an independent cardboard collection run by the Parish Council would make sense?” Perhaps we can have an answer from the parish council on this possibility.
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