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You are here: Home > Other Schemes > Innovation

• Managing Organisation:

  Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council

• Contact:

  Paul Marshall

• Telephone:

  01422 365631 

• Website:

  Click here to visit website

• View Map:

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Project Information

In November 2006 the Parks & Streetscene Service was awarded a grant fund for
£20,000 from RAY (Recycling Action in Yorkshire) to pilot a project using leaf material
collected from the highways by the street cleaning unit. The aim was to process the
leaves into compost and then use as an exemplar case study to identify alternative uses
for this green waste material such as, top dressing turf enhancement, mulching and new
wildflower bed creation schemes rather than conventional landfill techniques of disposal.

The successful Recycling in Action project has seen 1000 tons of street cleaning waste
converted into good quality compost of which 300 tons has been used at Manor Heath
Park. It has been used in many ways such as; turf top dressing material and as an
effective planting media for the establishment of new and environmentally sustainable
wildflower habitats within the park.

The concept of using compost as a tool to capture the public’s imagination lead to the
public naming the compost “Black Gold”, and the scheme has been developed into other
areas of activity, such as school learning days on habitat creation, recycling and
biodiversity and, corporate team building days creating new wildflower areas within the
park.

During 2007 Parks & Streetscene hosted a regional compost dissemination day
highlighting the RAY project for other councils, included a visit from the Scott’s
Company for commercial compost production, the project also lead to a visiting party
from the National wildflower Centre, Liverpool