Transforming growing media in the UK: a partnership approach

1
Transforming growing media in the UK a
partnership approach

• Paul Alexander, Royal Horticultural Society
• Neil Bragg, Bulrush Horticulture Ltd Shadow
  Chair Horticultural Development Council
• George Padelopoulos, BQ plc
• Olly Watts, Royal Society for the Protection of
  Birds

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Outline

• Peat use in horticulture
• Environmental concerns questioned its use
• UK striving towards 90 peat-free materials
• Peat and the UK gardening industry
• How have NGOs, retailers, growers, manufacturers,
  gardeners developed and responded to this issue?

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Peat

• Peat staple material in horticulture
• But.. concerns
• Destruction of rare UK habitat
• 94 of raised bog habitat lost, lt 6,000 ha
  remaining
• Continuing damage from peat extraction for
  horticulture

Peter Roworth (ARPS)
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Associated and Developing Issues

• Archaeological archive
• Flood protection
• Water quality
• Restoration amenity wetland sites vs peatland
  habitat
• Sustainability - 22.5cm pa harvest, 1mm pa
  formation
• Carbon store
• Environmental footprint wrong to export problem

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Early responses

• Peatlands Campaign Consortium 1990
• Ban peat
• Horticulture - anger and defensiveness
• Major retailers took up the issue
• Scarcity of quality peat-free alternatives in the
  90s

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UK Government

• 10 peatland conservation designation SSSI / ASSI
• 1992 - Peat Working Group balance interests
• Targets to replace peat in growing media and soil
  improvers
• 1995 - 40 materials to be non-peat by 2005
• 1997 - 90 materials to be non-peat by 2010

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Volumes of Material by Sector

• 96 peat is used in growing media
• 66 peat used by amateur gardener
• 32 peat used by professional growers
• Growing media materials 82 peat / 18 non-peat
• Total market 62 growing media, 38 soil
  improvers
• Total market 3.44 mt peat, 3.02 mt alternatives

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The UK Garden Retail Market

• Several hundred independent retailers with 1
  store
• 10 companies with small regional chains of 10 -
  20 stores
• Small number of national retailers mostly in the
  DIY market
• Large retailers instrumental in driving change -
  corporate responsibility
• Smaller retailers have not taken up issues
  ongoing peat-based market

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Retailer Policies - BQ

• Commitment to stop purchasing peat from SSSIs
• Targets for peat reduction towards 90 / 2010 and
  eventual elimination
• Peat-free products ? peat-reduced products
• Encourage RD into peat-free alternatives
• Introduced a range of peat-free and peat-reduced
  products at prices comparable to peat-based
  products
• Awareness raising product labelling,
  information, staff training
• Other major retailers introduced similar policies
  
• Few of the smaller retailers with publicly
  available policies

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Developments in Growing Media

• 1980s - quality at best varied, at worst poor
• Coir potential but quality varied, impact
  debated
• Wood based composted materials
• Initial results - mixed

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Today

• Barks (pine and spruce / larch mixes)
• Woodfibre (such as Toresa from Germany)
• Composted Green Waste (UK Standard)
• Waste stream materials eg food waste, sewage
  sludge
• Greater environmental benefits, effort and cost

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Plant / Media Trials Work

• Increasing numbers of trials p-red peat-free
• Not co-ordinated
• As knowledge and experience improved so did the
  results of the trials.
• From 2000, many of the trials proving successful
  but uptake limited
• economic drivers.
• familiarity of peat

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Manufacturers

• Peat Producers Association now Growing Media
  Association history of peat based industry /
  investment
• Alternatives require considerable investment -
  different processing and handling

• Some grants available mainly compost
• For the innovative companies, there are benefits
  from using new mixes, can include
• enhanced shelf life of the product
• consistent material producing predictable growth
• marketing advantages

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Growers

• Many growers conditioned to using peat
• Pro-growers reluctance to change
• poor materials in the late 1980s
• poor traceability and risk (even today)
• Suggestion of single material being the panacea
  ill-founded
• Peats - highly variable due to their origins and
  hence produce a range of growing media including
  some plant specific mixes
• Demands of large retailers are encouraging trials

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Environmental Organisations and other NGOs

• Environmental organisations increasingly
  recognise practicalities of developing
  alternative materials
• Greater understanding has led to co-operative
  NGO/industry working unlike 1990
• All parties learn from each other technical and
  environmental
• Joint efforts towards peat reduction
• NGOs recognise / reward environmental leaders
• Raise awareness among members 5 million
• Still pressing for achievement of Government
  targets

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Consumers

• Peat has not captured wide public imagination
• Initial demand but first peat-free products were
  poor
• Quality improving and consumer confidence
  increasing
• BQ survey How important that your compost is
  peat-free?
• 47.4 fairly to very important
• 42.7 neither important or unimportant
• 4.8 not very important
• 5.2 not important at all
• 50 of BQs growing media material is peat-free

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Where are we today?

• 2005 target of 40 peat alternatives achieved
• Little progress recently to the 90 / 2010
• 3 large retailers all 50 peat replacement in
  their bagged product ranges
• Dilution is becoming the norm
• Significant investment in woodfibre and green
  composting facilities
• Suggests shift gathering pace towards the 90
  peat-replacement target

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Industry Consortium

• Defra - Horticultural Growing Media Forum
• good start, industry expected to make change
• Small group of key NGOs, retailers,
  manufacturers and Defra
• Grown to a larger group chaired by Horticultural
  Trades Association
• Encouraging and promoting progress towards peat
  replacement
• Scheme promoting peat reduction has largely been
  agreed

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Developing Issues

• Peats role as a carbon store and its
  significance in tackling climate change -
  analogous to avoided deforestation
• The large quantity of carbon stored in peatlands
  is incontrovertible
• As is the need to keep this carbon safely stored
  away and out of the active, greenhouse-impacting
  carbon pool
• Peat extraction and degraded peatland habitat
  both are carbon sources

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Conclusions

• The European Commission and community are
  positioned as world leaders on climate change
• As mires and peat bogs becoming increasingly
  recognised as important carbon stores
• peat replacement will be more important in Europe
• Habitat, archaeological, sustainability issues
  too
• The UK experience could help to develop
  sustainable growing media throughout Europe
• Help the horticulture industry addressing some of
  today's key environmental issues