As part of its centenary celebrations Rotary Club of Douglas have teamed up with the Western Civic Amenity site to supply and delivery hot compost bins to every primary school in the island that has a garden or runs horticultural classes.

This initiative was the idea of Mike Rose, the site manager of the amenity site in St John’s, who came up with the idea of encouraging composting to reduce the amount of organic waste that the schools send to the site.

As sponsor, Rotary Club of Douglas put the finance in place to purchase the bins that allow encourage decomposition at a higher speed than other composters.

Rotary and the schools are UNESCO Biosphere partners and this initiative supports their drive to be more eco efficient.

Old type compost bins can take up to two years to breakdown organic waste, could be accessed by animals and suffer water ingress.

The new 200-litre hot compost bins are sealed units and safer for children to use.

They break down organic waste in 30 to 90 days, allowing the pupils to see the process from start to finish and use the compost created in their gardens during their school year.

A trial of the bins was undertaken by primary schools in the west of the island. As this proved successful it was rolled out to all primary schools in the island.

The keen gardeners pictured are pupils from some of the primary schools accompanied by Mary Jane Falconer and Howard Callow from Rotary Club of Douglas and Mr Rose.

Mary Jane Falconer, chair of the Rotary Club of Douglas’ youth committee, said: ‘We were very pleased with the results of the trial and were delighted to support Mike when he asked us if we could finance the purchase and supply of hot compost bins to all the primary schools across the island.

‘I have visited a number of schools who have been the recipients of the hot compost bins and was encouraged by the enthusiasm shown by the budding gardeners making compost from left-over food from the school kitchens.

‘I was very impressed to see pupils growing mint, strawberries, potatoes, beetroot, leeks and all sorts of flowers in the school gardens.

‘One of the teachers said that the pupils were clearly taking responsibility for the environment and respecting the ground around the school. Another mentioned that their school had elderly local residents volunteer to help out in the gardens as part of an intergenerational activity.

‘I am so pleased that the hot compost bins will enable the school gardens to flourish.’