Waste disposal
Vegetable waste
There is a communal composting area at the north of the site where you will find large compost bins. These are suitable for vegetable waste (including weeds) which are not too woody. Please use the facility but follow the notices posted there. In particular, Please:
- Put compostable stuff where the notices direct you.
- Don't bring garden (or other) waste from home.
- Put woody material onto the bonfire, for burning.
- Put potato and tomato waste, which probably has blight spores, on the fire for burning.
The site should be reasonably tidy. Please help to keep it on order.
Burnable waste
The latest Oxford City Council soil analysis of the allotment site found traces of polyaromatic hydrocarbons in the soil. We are therefore advised not to hold bonfires on plots for fear of adding to these traces. To the east of the communal compost bins there is a communal bonfire facility. Please bring your burnable plot waste to the communal bonfire, rather than burning it on your own plot. Help yourself to the ash to put around your fruit bushes, or to discourage slugs and snails.
If you do wish to make your own bonfire, please conform to the
Code of practice for bonfires on Allotment sites
.
The Oxford City Council website also has a page with advice about bonfires.
Rubble bank
Near the composting area there is a builders bag which is placed for members to dispose of rubble (of which we have much). It is by the fence to the left of shed as you look north. Before we had this facility, a lot of rubble was discarded into skips, which is costly. Now, if you have bits of pots, rocks, china etc., please place it in the rubble bank when there is room! If the containers are overflowing, please keep your rubble on your plot until such time as there is space in the rubble bank.
The rubble gets re-used by some volunteers who take it and put it on the main paths where the ground has begun to sink, or where the paths need to be reinforced to avoid rutting when heavy vehicles drive over it. Please feel free to help yourself to it, e.g. for making bases for sheds and the like.
Skips
The association usually organises a skip near the Port Meadow gate in Autumn and Spring, so that you can discard your non-organic rubbish. Please:
- Put compostable rubbish on the communal compost.
- Put burnable rubbish on the communal bonfire.
- Put rubble (stones, bricks, china etc.) in the rubble bank.
The skips are expensive, and the contents go to landfill, so try to use them only for stuff that can't be disposed of more cheaply or in a more environmentally friendly way.
