September 21, 2005
By Lucky Sindane
NOTHING should go to waste, even garden refuse. In the spirit of recycling, Pikitup, the City's waste management company, is taking garden refuse from 48 garden sites and turning it into the best food for the soil.
The garden waste is recycled at the Panorama Composting Plant, which was officially launched on Tuesday, 20 September in Roodepoort.
Pikitup's manager for garden sites and composting, Dick Mulder, said, "The Panorama composting plant will be used to process garden refuse into valuable compost.
Pikitup's MD Siva Pillay plants a tree with children from the Pholosho Senior Primary School from Alexandra
"The refuse from normal gardening activities, like grass cutting, leaves and the pruning of plants, is collected from Pikitup's existing garden sites and taken through to the stockpile of raw material at the composting plant. The material is fed into the milling machine, which churns out high-quality, organic compost that can be used to enrich soil for agricultural and gardening activities," he explained.
The plant can manage up to 60 000 tons of waste a year.
"We want to increase the figure to 200 000 tons of waste annually, with the establishment of other three composting plants in Linbro Park, Marie Louise and Robinson Deep within the next five years," Mulder said.
These plants are being developed, following environmental impact assessments.
"One of the distinct advantages of using garden waste for compost is the amount of airspace that is saved on landfill sites," he added.
Only clean organic material like leaves, grass cuttings and pruned clippings is used to make compost at the Panorama site - no chemicals or sewage sludge is added.
"Our plant is also environmentally friendly and there is a complete absence of odour on site because we are using 'nature's way' to generate the compost, supplementing it with oxygen and water. In fact, when the compost is turned, it releases a pleasant mushroom smell," Mulder said.
After the green waste has been reduced in size by the milling machine, it is placed in rows, known as windrows, where it is turned and matured, put through a drum screen to filter out material that has not composted and deposited into a stock pile, from where it is taken for bagging and bulk.
The compost has been registered with the department of agriculture as a Group 2 fertiliser.
It can be used for agriculture, horticulture, garden services, golf courses and individual homes, and the target market for the sale of the compost is across the board.
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