Compost to fetch more

A survey conducted by the Waste and Resource Action Programme has revealed that the increasing fertiliser prices would lead to the demand for compost going up. Last year soil improver and fertiliser prices increased by over fifty per cent and they have now reached record levels. Partly the increase is attributed to a price rise of natural gas which is a component of ammonia fertilisers. But with the high prices for fertilisers farmers were now turning to compost and this was likely to lead to higher prices for it.

The Waste and Resource Action Programme has approximated that compost fetches a price of five pounds for every tonne. The expenses involved in spreading vary between one and three pounds per tonne. A price increase would proportionally increase the ninety million pound turnover which the sector recorded in the 2006 to 2007 financial year.

In recent years the compost markets have grown and the survey conducted by Waste and Resource Action Programme revealed that the amount of waste that underwent composting since the 2005 to 2006 financial year had increased by twenty per cent. The waste body predicted that the growth would continue as local authorities appreciated the savings they would make by rerouting waste from landfill sites especially with the recent increase in landfill tax from twenty four pounds to thirty two pounds per tonne.

Other factors which will further develop the sector include a landfill directive by the European Union which specifies that 5 million tonnes of local authority organic waste must undergo composting in four to five years’ time.