Organisation Background:

Tiphereth is a registered charity running a community in Edinburgh supporting adults with learning difficulties and autism, providing residential care, day services and supported living.

Current status of composting:

This is an illustration of a community composting project that sits within a much larger endeavour, providing support and skills and operating under a Paragraph 12 exemption.

Relevance to the Highlands:

The activities could be replicated at a smaller scale, at some of the larger Highland communities where support to vulnerable people is being provided

Type of composting solution:

Tiphereth Compost & Firewood is a social enterprise arm of the charity which manage the community composting scheme. They have a contract with Edinburgh Council to collect garden waste from the local area and receive a grant from them for doing this.

Scale:

Garden waste is collected from around 500 households and the operations are carried out in a disused quarry. A trommel is used to sort the material which is then composted in piles of about 75m2 . The material is left for two weeks, turned and transferred to a new bay where it is left for around 12 weeks and turned every fortnight. Around 300-400 tonnes is processed annually

Input material:

Garden waste, where materials that cannot be accepted include:

• Gravel, stones, rocks soil or turf
• Logs or whole trees
• Fish, animal or human products or by-products
• Poisonous Plant Matter: Common Ragwort, Rhododendron, Hemlock, Yew
• Invasive Weeds: Giant Hogweed, Himalayan Balsam, Japanese Knotweed
• Rubbish: plastic, glass, metal, concrete etc

End use:

The resulting compost is sold back to the community in 25 litre bags and in one cubic metre bags of loose compost. The compost is delivered to local post codes as indicated on the web site.

Partners/ collaborators:

Edinburgh Council provide an income to the organisation to collect the garden waste and households collaborate by providing the waste. The charity also obtains an income from the local authority for providing a day care service for people working at the quarry where the compost is processed.

Price:

Householders are charged for collection and drop off. Compost is sold for £4.50 per bag and £90 per metre cubed.

Main motivator:

To generate an income and provide work opportunities for those attending the day service.

Number of years the scheme has been running for:

26 years (since 1996)