Composting

Composting is a great alternative to using your green and purple bins. Find out how to compost at home, join or set up a local community composting scheme.

Why compost?

Composting helps to reduce the amount of waste sent to an incinerator and, as a result, decreases CO2 emissions. It's also an easy way to transform kitchen and garden waste into valuable, nutrient-rich food for your garden.

Buy a home compost a bin

Why not try composting at home? As part of Merseyside and Halton Waste Partnership, we have teamed up with gettcomposting.com to provide Liverpool residents with exclusive offers on home compost bins and other green products. Order your compost bin via www.getcomposting.com

Once you've got your bin, you'll need some advice on setting it up and how to get started.

• Recycle Now has a comprehensive guide on how to set up your bin.
• The Royal Horticultural Society provides information on when and how to compost.

Community composting schemes

Community composting schemes are popping up across the city. Residents and community groups manage these schemes which help to support the city’s climate emergency response.

Composting schemes in Liverpool you can get involved with include Compost Works and those managed by some of the Liverpool Parks Friends Groups. If there is interest in your area, why not visit one of these schemes for inspiration?

Please be aware that local composting schemes must apply for a T23 exemption certificate. For more information on how to apply see the environment agency’s guidance on GOV.UK.

What can go in a compost bin?

• Tea bags
• Grass cuttings
• Vegetable peelings, salad leaves and fruit scraps
• Old flowers and nettles
• Coffee grounds and filter paper
• Spent bedding plants
• Rhubarb leaves
• Young annual weeds such as chickweed
• Crushed eggshells
• Egg and cereal boxes
• Corrugated cardboard and paper scrunched up
• Toilet and kitchen roll tubes
• Garden prunings
• Twigs and hedge clippings
• Straw and hay
• Bedding from vegetarian pets
• Ashes from wood, paper and lumpwood charcoal
• Sawdust and wood chippings
• Wool
• Woody clippings
• Cotton threads and string made from natural fibre
• Feathers
• Vacuum bag contents
• Old natural fibre clothes cut into small pieces
• Tissues, paper towels and napkins
• Shredded confidential documents
• Corn cobs and stalks

What's not compostable?

• Cooked vegetables, meat and dairy products unless they have first been treated with a specialist kitchen composter
• Diseased plants
• Dog poo or cat litter, or baby's nappies