Council Hosts Compost Giveaway For Local Residents

Swale Borough Council will be hosting a free compost giveaway this coming Saturday (24th April) from 10am to 2pm.

To help local gardeners feed their flowerpots, gardens, allotments and vegetable patches, the council has teamed up with partners Blaise Farm and Steve Pack Agricultural Services for the free giveaway. Blaise Farm takes the garden and food waste collected from around Swale and turns it into soil conditioner and compost for farmers to use to help grow crops.

The giveaway, running in Sittingbourne, Faversham and Sheppey on Saturday 24th April, and to ensure it is Covid safe, will be run as pre-booked slots between 10am and 2pm where residents can arrange to pick up 25 litre reusable hessian bags filled with compost. Each resident booked can collect up to two bags.

To book, call the booking line on 01795 417044 between 10am-1pm Monday-Friday to book a 10 minute time slot at one of the three locations. You will then be given a unique reference number which you will need to bring with you when you come to collect the free compost.

You will have the option of picking up bags of compost from:

• Sittingbourne – Milton Rec, along Vicarage Road, next to the tennis courts

• Faversham – Faversham rec, in the car park area

• Isle of Sheppey – Marine Parade, on the open space/car park fronting Barton’s Point Coastal Park (opposite the Shingle Bank car park).

Once all of the slots are booked, all the bags are gone, so you will need to call and book quickly.

Martyn Cassell, head of commissioning, environment and leisure, told SFM News: “We are doing this giveaway to show the many advantages of residents doing their bit through recycling their food and garden waste. By recycling, residents are helping the environment, reducing the amount of general waste they are putting into their green wheelie bins and creating a reusable product. Using the compost to help grow plants or food will also help to improve air quality and reduce carbon, plus provide a habitat for our wildlife. We encourage people to sign up for a food waste caddy free of charge if they are not currently using one by contacting us on 01795 417888. Residents can also pay for the garden waste service which provides regular kerbside collections of your waste, taking the hassle out of taking it to the tip.”

You will also be offered a free wild flower seedbom at the sites to help encourage pollinators and wildlife into more gardens.

To find out more about food waste collections, visit www.swale.gov.uk/bins-littering-and-the-environment/bins.

To subscribe to garden waste collections, visit www.swale.gov.uk/garden-waste.