| | |
| Over many years the churchyard has accumulated a lot
of green waste. The compost bins have overflowed (with a lot of other
rubbish as well) and a large untidy pile has grown at the end near the
Recreation Ground gate. |  |
| The church groundsman Norman Lewell does
not have the resources to solve this problem. Enter Girton's Master
Composters. Norman talked to us at the Summer Feast and asked if we
could help, and we were delighted to oblige. We enlisted the
assistance of the Anglesey Abbey "Black Gold" project, which was set
up with a grant from the Community
Recycling and Economic Development (CRED) Programme of the Royal
Society of Wildlife Trusts. "Black Gold" is dedicated to reducing
green waste by turning it into rich compost, and possesses a powerful
chipper/shredder. It is run by Anglesey's Environment Officer, Matt
Vernon, who also took all the photos on this page. |
| Matt came to Girton with his equipment on 17th September, and
his first task was to warn the team that only trained operatives could
work on the chipper, though we were all fully occupied in sorting the
material and passing it to him for chipping. Our first job was to
clear out the compost bins completely: we overfilled two wheelie bins
with plastic, oasis, wire and other rubbish, and ended with the two
compost bins about half full of composting materials. Then we set to
work on the huge pile of assorted wood and waste... |
| ...augmented by materials we had collected from
around the village, which were too big for our own shredder. |  |
 | It was an amazing sight to observe whole trees being
chipped in a matter of seconds. We estimate that in one afternoon we
had chipped about 4 tons of material, and made significant inroads
into the pile. At the end of the day, the compost bins were
overflowing with the makings of good compost, consisting of the green
waste now layered with the wood chips. |
| A month later Matt returned, and he trained two of
Girton's Master Composters in the use of the large chipper. We then
largely finished the job, chipping a further 3 tons. This time we took
the chips to a willing villager who wanted them for a garden
mulch. She may have got more than she bargained for! Finally, Matt
returned again in November, this time with Iwan Hughes, one of his
assistants. We discovered that the pile had grown again... |  |
 | ...and rather disappointingly a lot more plastic waste had
been added to the compost bins. So we cleared these out again and then
set to work to finish the pile - another 2 tons went through the
chipper and was deposited by the compost bins. |
| This left a large amount of material at the bottom
of the pile which was already largely composted and too soft to go
through the chipper. So Matt and Iwan went back to Anglesey, grabbed a
quick lunch and then came back with a compost riddle. This separates
the compost from other material. We set it up and began shovelling the
last of the pile into it... |  |
 | ...being careful to look out for wildlife and rescuing
several toads from an untimely death. |
| At the end we had a very small pile of wire, stones
and other rubbish, a large pile of beautiful compost... |  |
 | ...and only a blackened area of ground to show where ten
tons of rubbish once lay. Yes, we estimate that in all we shifted a
full ten tons, and left the churchyard with the makings of a very
large amount of compost. |
| If the people looking after their graves will now
ensure that only compostable material goes into the bins, and take
plastic, wire and oasis home with them, then there will be an ample
supply of rich compost to enrich the soil on graves or in other parts
of the churchyard. |
