Creating the blooming best school gardens with NWP compost

To help schools get ready for the Mid and East Antrim in Bloom 'Best School Gardening Project' competition, Council provided a free, one-off delivery of Natural World Products (NWP) compost to selected schools across the Borough. Schools applied for the compost by describing the projects they would like to use the compost for and 22 schools were selected.

Mayor of Mid and East Antrim, Cllr Peter Johnston, said “Council’s Parks and Open Spaces Service and Waste Service are working to promote the importance of Natural World Products (NWP) compost. This compost is made from the contents of residents’ brown bins and is then used within parks, allotments and floral bedding displays across the Borough. The better you dispose of your food waste, the better our Borough blooms.

This year, maybe more than any other, has emphasised the vital role that gardens and outdoor spaces played – and continue to play – in the physical and mental health and wellbeing of the nation during lockdown and restrictions. School gardening specifically can play a key part in stress reduction, socialising with friends, boosting biodiversity, and creating a beautiful space, not only for their school, but for the whole community.

Well done to these schools for doing their bit to make our Borough bloom. The school projects I’ve heard about as part of this giveaway include planting new areas for wildlife, planting vegetables, working with senior members of the community, sowing wildflowers to encourage bees and insects and creating a well-being garden. I look forward to seeing all these wonderful projects come to fruition and encourage all schools in the Borough to enter the ‘Best School Garden Project’ competition.”

Colm Warren, CEO, Natural World Products (NWP) said: “NWP contributes around 50% of all recycling from collected household waste in Northern Ireland every year - that's well over 200,000 tonnes kept OUT of landfill.

Contributing in tangible ways to our local community is an incredibly important aspect of our ethos at NWP.

We believe people need to see the benefits of effective household recycling flowing back into their communities to further encourage the sorts of behavioural changes that can lead to even more material being reused or recycled in the future.

With the incredible carbon savings made possible by diverting waste from landfill to the creation of high quality organic compost, it significantly impacts efforts to combat the current climate emergency as well.

As such, we are delighted to partner with Mid and East Antrim Council to support the Best School Garden Competition. We look forward to see the creative ways schools use the compost throughout the year.”

The Mid and East Antrim in Bloom Community Competitions run annually. There are thirteen community competitions with great prizes available for winners and runners up in each. Categories include Best Kept Front Garden, Best Kept Allotment Garden, Best Kept Commercial Premises, Best Kept Community Planting Scheme and the Gardening for Wildlife Award, Volunteer of The Year and Outstanding Contribution to In Bloom. There are five competitions specifically for young horticulturalists too – Blooming Creative, Best School Gardening Project, Young Volunteer of The Year and the Tallest Sunflower Competition.”

For more information and to enter visit www.midandeastantrim.gov.uk/inbloom or e: inbloom@midandeastantrim.gov.uk