Brimscombe & Thrupp Community Composters
BATCOM (Brimscombe and Thrupp Community Composters) is a membership scheme, serving the residents of the parish of Brimscombe and Thrupp near Stroud. You need to be a resident of the parish to become a Member.
Members will be able to bring their domestic green garden waste to the BATCOM site in Hope Mill Lane, Thrupp, where it will be shredded and then made into compost by being mechanically turned through a series of large composting bays.
The composting site at BATCOM is going to be something quite special. An impressive row of six 2.5metre square bays will face you as you enter the site.. each one containing several tonnes of local green garden waste at different stages of decomposition, with the final bay containing an almost finished product of dark, crumbly, nutritious compost.
To safeguard the River Frome against any potential contamination from the bays, a concrete pad will be set underneath with a drainage system leading to a tank in the ground. The tank will be served by a pump to collect any compost leachate, which in turn can be added back to enrich the compost piles.
How Our Community Compost Scheme Will Work
As BATCOM is a Community Benefit Society, becoming a shareholder enables you to have a say in how it is run. As a Brimscombe and Thrupp resident you will be able to buy £1 shares in BATCOM – every shareholder carries an equal ‘vote’ regardless of the numbers of shares they invest in.
Additionally, to become a composting member you will pay an annual subscription fee (which is around the same price as the brown bins collection service). Our running costs at the scheme will be funded partly from these fees and partly from waste credits, money paid to us per tonne of green waste we compost.
The scheme is volunteer-run, so as a thank you, free or discounted composting subscriptions will be offered to anyone who joins the volunteer BATCOM team. You don’t need to be a composting expert as training will be given. There are all sorts of ways you can volunteer – many of which involve worm-care and wheelbarrow-manoevering, but other skills are also welcome!
Finished, unsieved compost will be made available to members and non-members for a donation during our opening hours.
Finished, sieved compost will be occasionally bagged up for sale.
What can we compost?
Members of the composting scheme can compost organic, domestic green garden and allotment waste. BATCOM cannot take food/kitchen waste or pet litter or bedding, waste from businesses or any kind of general recycling or landfill waste.
To help us to easily shred your garden waste and fill our composting bays, there are separate signposted areas where you can leave different types of green materials. If you can sort them before you come, it’s easy to pop them in the right place when you arrive.
Before you come, separate your green materials into these types:
- Lawn Clippings, soft non-woody weeds/plants
- Leaves
- Small woody herbaceous plants, hedge trimmings, branches no larger than 4″ diameter
Please don’t bring:
- Wood with nails, twine or plastic
- Plastic – pots, bags, netting etc
- Sods of turf, clods of soil, large rootstocks, plants still in pots or general-waste garden rubbish.
A few words about persistent herbicides/weedkillers:
Members must not bring grass clippings from lawns that have been treated with products containing Aminopyralid or Clopyralid herbicide in the previous year. Such products selectively kill broadleaf weeds that are growing in grass. Unfortunately these Aminopyralid and Clopyralid herbicides are persistent, and can kill plants that are later given compost made from grass that has been treated with them. If you use lawncare products please take care to ensure they don’t contain Aminopyralid or Clopyralid.
If you’re not sure, don’t bring your grass clippings to BATCOM.
BATCOM volunteers will be easy to spot when you visit by our stylish high-viz tabbards, dirty fingernails and Composter’s Smiles. We are always happy to help and welcome your thoughts (either in person on the site or by email), so please say hi and ask if you need to know anything or have any feedback.
