Farm waste to resource

I moved home recently.  I rented a modest cottage on a working farm and livery yard based in the North Cotswolds. Mine is not the only home on the 75 acre farm. There are 8 other permanently rented homes and two large barns which are holiday lets.

Over the past month I have been exploring the land and walks available to me in my new surroundings, as well as meeting the new additions to the farm including the calves and litter of kittens.

I am a country girl at heart, and I was raised as a passionate supporter of British farming.

Farming plays an important role in managing the environment of over 70% of the UK’s land area. Farmers are responsible for managing both important landscape features and providing habitats for wildlife of local, national and international importance.

During my exploration of my new surroundings, I have been struck by the various and multiple piles of debris which has collected in stables, open sided barns and in fields right across the farm. They include articles such as: metal piping and boiler tanks, farm films from silage bales, roof tiles, wooden pallets and cable reels. All discarded – or possibly just awaiting a new, repurposed life.

Farm waste can typically be classified as either natural waste, such as silage and manure and unnatural waste, such as the articles I have observed. In fact, did you know that plastic packaging waste from agriculture represents approximately 1.5% of the overall volume of plastic packaging in the waste stream in England.

The tenanted cottages on my Cotswold farm home, don’t have individual refuse or recycling bins in their immediate vicinity. Instead, residents and visitors are requested to take their rubbish and recycling to a central area near the main farmhouse, from which is it collected fortnightly. On inspection, the area isn’t well organised and segregation for recycling is poor and littered with broken glass

Despite the presence of a green wheeled bin, there aren’t any door to door collection caddies available to residents on the farm, which could be as a result of a lack of local authority provision, or just a lack of resident awareness or motivation.

The role of waste management across farms and rural communities is not something I had previously spared a thought for, but through my observations living on the farm, I think it would be interesting to seek to understand how farmers and tenants alike could be better encouraged and assisted to improve the management of wastes. Over the coming months, I plan to investigate the challenges unique to my own farming community further, understand the scope and appetite to improve, and lead by example.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress!