Full circle

Given half a chance I would much rather be outside than inside, and this weather gives me well over half a chance so I've been doing more in the garden than I've done for a very long time. Extracting weeds, overgrown plant roots, boulders, broken bricks and bits of glass has left the soil level a bit low. Which is convenient because one of our two compost bins is full and the other is ready to empty after two years of lying fallow. 

But wheelbarrow. 

Actually we have two but they've both been wheel-less for a long time. Last week I measured the available space for a wheel on the barrow that hadn't rusted through, googled and found something I thought would fit. This afternoon it arrived and was a doddle to attach, so we've been emptying the bin and sieving the compost. It's fantastic to see how time and worms turn banana skins, bean pods, maize cobs, tomato stalks, citrus peel and much else into a rich tilth. And interesting to see what hasn't composted in two years. The peach and cherry stones will go into our council food waste bin where I'm sure the heat will deal with them. The marrow-ends and avocado skins and stones are now stuffed into the top of our full bin - another two years will finish them off.

But what has really surprised me - apart from the absence so far of any spoons - is the volume of non-composted tea bags.

I realise now I've been very naive - cursory research shows that there is polypropylene in either the bag material or the heatseal or the sachet of almost all teabags. Even those made of bio-plastics (from corn-starch) will not biodegrade in the low temperatures of a domestic compost bin.

So it's back to loose tea and teapots.