Master Composter

Remember back in February when I told you I was going to be a Master Composter? Well, I successfully completed the course, held in Swaffham, last week and now I'm well on the way to becoming a compost ambassador for Norfolk!

The Master Composter scheme is the result of a patnership between Norfolk County Council's Waste Management Team, the WRAP (Waste Resources Action Programme) Home Composting Programme and Garden Organic - formerly the HDRA and now the UK's leading charity based organic movement.

With such a strong hierarchy, the course is destined to succeed and that's exactly what it does. The syallbus basically covers the importance of home composting in waste minimisation, the benefits to the individual and the environment, types of bin, materials you can use and the process of composting itself. And, of course, what to do with the end product - most important!

But that's just a brief description of the subjects covered. When you consider we packed in all the above (all in much finer detail), visited a landfill site and a community composting scheme, made up and filled some compost bins and took part in a quiz all in the two days, you'll realise it's quite a comprehensive programme!

There are now 60 Master Composters across Norfolk - with many more spread around the country - and our role now is to explain to households and local communities just how simple and inexpensive it can be to start composting at home. This information can be imparted through demonstrations at shows or fetes, by giving talks at local schools or gardening clubs and by writing articles for publication in local newspapers and topical magazines. The organisations involved in delivering the training encourage novice Master Composters to clock up 30 volunteer hours to complete the qualification, but in reality this figure is nearly always exceeded.

I've already made a start on whittling down my hours total by producing a press release on the course and celebrating the fact that Harrod Horticultural have a Master Composter within their ranks! I've got plenty of ideas up my sleeve for further articles, so if you want to know about composting, keep it here!