Recycling Lawn Clippings

[lifestyle]

Does anyone or has anyone considered, Composting Lawn clippings and potentially using (selling) the finished product to their customers ?

[lifestyle]

I'll take the lack of replies as a no :i dunno: ?

[BLACK BEAR]

:i dunno: Gee Lifestyle, we are all busy cutting the stuff! :cool: When i finish my six day week in spring and generally 4-5 day week for the rest of the year the last bloody thing I wanna deal with is GRASS CLIPPINGS :help: :eyes: :help:
I have enough SH.. around the place already, :frightene what will the good lady say :dean: ;dealers; when I have to take another part of the yard to put some more lovely smelling stuff :eek: :eek:
Do you live on a farm lifestyle??? :p

[geoff]

my modest home on 600 m2 would cetaintly make the neighbours happy to smell that lovely rotting smell of grass clippings.. i just go to my envorimix recycle tip that uses grass clippings and tree branches to make potting mix etc ..mate leave it to the expert and sit back after a hard 6 days and enjoy a colg stubbie follwed by a penfolds 407 can sav and finish the night with good snore for the next day of work ...

[lifestyle]

What about finding someone who does compost/use it.

Someone with a chook pen maybe.

Would an advertisement in the local paper every month or so, be cheaper than daily trips to the tip - you could find permaculturalists or other organic gardeners in your areas who you could take it!

BLACK BEAR, We recently moved to a property with almost 2 acres and yes I do compost a lot of grass for personal use around the house. But i have also been Networking with others who might need it. Our neighbour for example would like a bag or so every week in his chook pen, The neighbour of another customer has a permaculture set up in her back yard and uses a catcher full periodically in her garden.

The point being, we can counteract the rising cost of fuel by thinking outside the box on cutting expenses without reducing quality of the service - in fact increasing service quality and adding value to the service we provide!

[Bgs]

I try to Mulch as many lawns as I can which solves the problem of what to do with it, But i still collect a fair amount and try to recycle a bit of it at home

I also live on a small 627sqm block so i cant handle huge amounts Some goes in the chook pen, some on the compost heap, and I have 4 plastic compost bins and I put a bit into each I regularly do no dig veggie patches at home and use it on those as well.

But during Summer (Wet Season) with mulching not an option I was collecting that much of the stuff and with the tip only 5 mins from my house and is on the way home and it only costs $7.70 for 500Kgs thats where most of it ends up our council recycles it into compost anyway.

As for potential reuses I have Installed a few No Dig Veggie patches and use the cut grass as one of the ingredients.

:wave-hi:

[Mrs HMS]

[QUOTE=lifestyle]What about finding someone who does compost/use it.

Someone with a chook pen maybe.QUOTE]

I got out the phone book and started calling local poultry farms, finally found a duck farm that loved the idea. So now we take all our clippings there (although we encourage our customers to allow us to use their compost bins or green waste bins - but apparently that's a contentious issue).

Either way we save on tip fees (offsets the rising fuel prices) and one way or another it all gets recycled.

[lifestyle]

Yeah, unfortunately not all states / councils offer a green waste collection service, and I currently only have one customer who has a "garden bag". It depends where you live i guess :i dunno:

It would be interesting to see what areas of Australia have a green waste collection service.

[BLACK BEAR]

:) We all have different ways to run our business but I have found it easier on this poor tired old body of mine :( to encourage most of my clients to use their green waste bin, garden beds or compost bin. :clap: Much easier, quicker, cheaper, safer and more OH&S friendly ;) than to cart the stuff around.

[Just Love Gardening]

Your probably right to recycle the stuff. chicken / duck farmers would love the clippings. From the 80 regular customers that I mow though, I only use the catcher on 3 of them as I use a mulching mower on the principle that it regenerates back into the earth as organic material anyway.
Cheers from the Central Coast :wave-hi:

[geejay]

had a look inside a areobin compost maker,now that bladder system could help compost grass clippings.

[grassy234]

Hi,
Luckily we have a Council run worm farm in our area and they take all the grass cuttings we contractors can supply.
Cheers
Kevin

[Bluey]

I mulch mow as many as \UI can and what I catch I have a worm farmer who takes them. He is close to me so I swing past on the way home. He rang me out of the blue one day asking if I was interested in supplying him.

I said you bet and have been doing so ever since. He told me he had rung a couple of other lawnies but they wanted to sell it to him. How cheap is that. Saves me dump fees and he uses it plus I get a free bag of worms every now and then for my own garden plus castings at half price.

I love the barter system

[Sandgroper]

We have a Trading Post type paper,,which is free to advertise in,,i have seen contractors advertises in the "Free " section giving away free clippings,,,,,,,,,,,i am sure if i tried had enough i would be able to get rid of all my clippings direct to whoever wants them for there gardens and whatever,,,,,,,,,,you could also advertise on free notice boards as well.

As for the making compost idea and selling it back to the customer,,the idea does not appeal to me but if i had a bit of space/farm maybe i would ?,,,,,,,not sure what the demand would be for it but :i dunno:

[administrator]

Sandgroper is that called the Quoca or someting like that :cool:

[The Bushpig]

My recycle and waste depot put their fee up 25% on 1/7/08.It costs me $8.00 per bag to dispose of.I now put all clippings on any and all bare patches (saves blowing up dust and stuffing air filters)on all my customers lawns that can use it,use the vegatation bin where customers have one,also use my own veg bins once a month and for the people who's lawn fill a bag I now charge the $8.00 fee.Am saving heaps and the customers with bare patches are starting to get lawn growing.Win win so far.

[Bluey]

Dump fees are getting beyond a joke. No wonder people are dumping stuff illegally.

I took a 6x4 of general waste to the dump a couple of days ago. $50 thank you very much. If you are working for a pensioner and you tell them you have to charge dump fees like this then kiss the job goodbye.

Some Councils allow people one free dumping per month some don't, some have hard waste collection some don't but if you are doing the work for local residents none of this applies to you as they charge you commercial rates which are higher than private rates.

Makes it hard. And then they sell your green waste or ask you to sort out any metal so they can sell that as well. I steer clear of the dumps as much as I can and recycle the metal myself. Just wish I had a big property where I could make my own mulch.

[lifestyle]

Dump fees are getting beyond a joke. No wonder people are dumping stuff illegally.

I took a 6x4 of general waste to the dump a couple of days ago. $50 thank you very much. If you are working for a pensioner and you tell them you have to charge dump fees like this then kiss the job goodbye.

Some Councils allow people one free dumping per month some don't, some have hard waste collection some don't but if you are doing the work for local residents none of this applies to you as they charge you commercial rates which are higher than private rates.

Makes it hard. And then they sell your green waste or ask you to sort out any metal so they can sell that as well. I steer clear of the dumps as much as I can and recycle the metal myself. Just wish I had a big property where I could make my own mulch.

We need a community "Lawnies" tip... take all the stuff there and shred it, compost it and go back there to pick up a free load for customers as required.

[Bluey]

Great idea Lifestyle or even give us reduced rates seeing as how we can supply them a lot of raw material

[Islandhead]

Great idea Lifestyle or even give us reduced rates seeing as how we can supply them a lot of raw material

We already do that, i assume it's the same everywhere... My tip charges $25 a load and then mulches it all up and sells it for $35m3... they must be laughing their heads off :laughing: :laughing:

[lifestyle]

We already do that, i assume it's the same everywhere... My tip charges $25 a load and then mulches it all up and sells it for $35m3... they must be laughing their heads off :laughing: :laughing:

I usually take around 2 trailer loads to the tip each Month. At $9.50 a load its not too bad. I also have about 20 loads a month that I use as mulch, compost, bulk and filler for No-Dig gardens etc. etc.

My vegetable garden this year will be growing in 100% recycled lawn clippings.