No peat for me
- Always ask for peat free compost, but check the labels as ‘reduced peat’ means there is still peat there, sometimes as much as 90%.
- Ignore claims of ‘not from an environmentally sensitive site’ – all peat bogs are sensitive habitats: peatlands are a type of wetland that are the largest natural land based carbon store on the planet.
- Reducing peat use is important whether you have a large garden, small area with containers, window box or if you have a garden or green space attached to your business or in your business area.
- Damaged peatlands are a major source of emissions. Gardeners account for 70 per cent of UK peat use (commercial growers use the rest).
- The production and use of a 60-litre bag of 100 per cent sphagnum peat compost could be responsible for releasing up to 50kg (110lb) of CO2 into the atmosphere. That’s 50kg (110lb) of CO2 that was, until the peat was dug up, safely locked away.
- If a million gardeners each use just one bag of peat compost, that’s 50,000 metric tonnes of CO2, and there are 10 to 20 million gardeners in the UK alone. More info can be found here.