Compost Materials

Learn about the different organic materials you can compost – which vary from fallen leaves to human poo! If you’re new to composting, we recommend starting with What You Can Compost: From Everyday Items To The Bizarre…

Community composting

Can You Compost Dog Poop? One Councillor’s 750-Bag Experiment

Every morning, Gill Thomas collects dog poop bags from the bins outside her local park and takes them home. It didn’t begin this way. In spring 2025, a resident flagged what Thomas describes as a “grot spot” – hundreds of littered dog waste bags dumped along a rural lane beside a Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust nature […]

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Retrieving compost from a compost bin.

A Study Found One Key Ingredient for Faster, Better Compost

Bulking agents are essential for successful composting. They create air pockets to help oxygen-loving bacteria thrive, absorb excess moisture, and improve the structure of dense, wet material. Without them, composting can be slow and inefficient. Now a new study published in Nature.com has identified the best bulking agent for home composting – and it’s both

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Chickens on the manure heap.

Use Manure, But Make Sure You Compost It First, Say Scientists. Here’s Why…

Boy, do we produce a lot of manure.  In the EU alone we produce 1400 million tonnes of manure, and the USA produces a similar amount. (That’s just the animals, humanure excluded.) This causes problems – think methane being released into the atmosphere, for example. But it also has the potential for some serious benefits

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Elephant taking a poo.

Zoo Animals’ Poop Turned into High-Quality Compost – Available for Sale Now!

17th April 2023 In an exciting new initiative, Tend, a sustainable product brand, has partnered with the Buffalo Zoo to produce compost made entirely from the manure and bedding of 14 different species of hooved herbivores, including rhinos, giraffes, and zebras. The combination of high-nitrogen exotic animal poop and carbon-rich aged stall bedding, straw, and

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Compost C:N Ratio Calculator & Comprehensive Material Tables

Looking for a handy Carbon-Nitrogen Ratio List to guide your composting efforts? In this article, you’ll find a comprehensive table of C:N ratios for everything from food waste to manures—and even a simple calculator to help you mix materials. C:N Ratio Calculator Select materials from the dropdown or add custom ones. The calculator will help

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Hair lying on floor in a hairdressers.

How Do You Compost Hair?

If you have access to a lot of hair, you’re in luck.  Hair is high in nitrogen and has excellent water retention ability.  Before composting, hair can contain both heavy metals and chemicals from treatments.  However, multiple studies show that despite this the final result makes great compost. This may be partly down to the

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