Hull Friends of the Earth

Hull Friends of the Earth started a project to research the demand for kerbside collection of garden waste.

We bought a second-hand milk float and a shredder. Hull City Council supported us with funding (Wyke Area Committee Community Initiatives Budget) and in housing and servicing the ex-milk float. The project relies on volunteer labour.

We started collecting in the Avenues area, in September 2002 and extended the collections to Newland Park in March 2004.

The bags of waste were shredded on the Newland Allotments site. The resulting mulch was either returned to householders, or used on the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Community Tree Nursery.

Problem: Our garden waste collection scheme quickly became popular. So popular that bags of waste were piling up on the allotment site because we could not shred the material fast enough for want of volunteers. Also, the shredder was not really up to the job. The unsightly piles of plastic bags had to go!

Solution: after discussions with Hull City Council's Allotments Officer, we were given permission to compost the material on site - as an experimental project. Some people said it would never work - the material would not rot down.