SOIL IMPROVER SCHEME A GREAT SUCCESS

New figures show more than 500 tonnes of soil improver has been collected by local residents in just 7 months from the Household Waste Recycling Centre!

High quality soil improver is a product of the composting of household garden waste collected by the Council. In March this year the Council introduced the scheme to allow borough residents to collect the soil improver completely free of charge, for use in their own gardens.

Mayor of Bedford Borough, Dave Hodgson, said: "It is great to see how popular this scheme has been this year and it's nice to be able to reward residents for their good recycling habits.

"This scheme fully closes the recycling loop; we collect the material from the residents as a waste, turn this into a high quality soil conditioner and then return this product to the residents for use in gardens in the Borough, rather than land filling this material."

Now that the growing season has come to an end and the Council is collecting less green garden waste from the kerbside, Bedford Borough Council is suspending the free soil improver scheme at Bedford's Household Waste Recycling Centre at Barkers Lane until the spring.

In the meantime however, bags of the soil improver are still available to buy directly from the Council's composting contractor Growing Beds Ltd at their site in Ravensden near Bedford. For further information contact Growing Beds Ltd on 01234 772226 or visit their website at www.growing-beds.co.uk.

For further information on the Council's waste and recyclingservices visit www.bedford.gov.uk/recycling, call 01234 267422 or email callcentre@bedford.gov.uk.