Home Composting

Up to 25 percent of the average bin is kitchen and garden waste which could be composted.

Home composting is a good way to divert your kitchen waste away landfill, and is great for your garden.

Home composting can be an art, but you can learn that art easily.

A wide range of material can be composted at home. Once this has broken down it can be used almost anywhere in the garden as a soil improver, and to top up tubs, planters and baskets. If you’re a keen gardener you may want to join in with Newport in Bloom.

If you would like to create your own compost heap please have a look at what you can and cannot compost in the tables below.

What can be composted?

Fast rotters

• Fruit Waste

• Raw vegetable peelings

• Teabags

• Coffee Grounds

• Flowers

• Weeds

• Hedge clippings

• Grass clippings (not too many at once)

Slow rotters

• Crumpled cardboard

• Egg boxes

• Egg shells

• Cardboard inside of toilet/kitchen roll

• Woody prunings

• Plant stems/twigs

• Autumn leaves

• Wood shavings

• Animal poo e.g. hamster/guinea pigs (herbivores – animals which eat grass, plants and seeds)

What cannot be home composted?

• Meat/fish/cones

• Dairy products

• Cooked/processed food

• Cat/dog (carnivore) litter/poo

• Coal ash

• Roots of perennial weeds (e.g. dandelions, ground elder, bindweed, docks)

If you would like to purchase a compost bin which can take most items including meat and dairy products then visit the Green Cone website. Or if you would like to purchase a basic composter visit your local garden centre.

For more home composting tips:

• Take a look at Waste Awareness Wales’ composting at home leaflet (opens pdf)

• Visit the composting guide website

• Visit the recycle now website

• View related links