Coastal Recycling donation helps Westbank ‘grow’ its Community Allotment
The Devonwide health and wellbeing charity Westbank Community Health and Care (Westbank) is continuing to improve its Community Allotment with a generous donation of soil improver from a local waste management and recycling company.
The green waste division of Exeter-based Coastal Recycling has delivered six tonnes of quality compost created from garden waste to improve the soil for food crops at Westbank’s Community Allotment in Exminster. The allotment provides an accessible space to support people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing. It underpins several other Westbank services, including its Community Cookery School, Community Larders and Community Café (Coffee on the Corner).
A group of gardening volunteers are helping to cultivate the green space on a strip of land behind Westbank’s Healthy Living Centre in Farm House Rise.
Nicole Seeff, Coastal Recycling’s Marketing Manager, says, “As a result of a chance encounter with Westbank’s Katie Elliott at last year’s Exeter Sustainability awards, we became aware that Westbank was redeveloping its Community Allotment to make the space fully accessible and more productive. We immediately realised that there was an opportunity for Coastal Recycling to support this excellent local initiative by providing soil improver.
“Coastal Recycling creates high-quality compost from garden matter through a controlled 12-week process. Green garden waste is collected from households and delivered to one of our sites, where it’s inspected to remove contaminants such as plastics, metals, glass, stones and invasive weeds. The approved material is shredded into manageable particles and sanitised for two weeks using natural microbial activity to destroy plant and animal pathogens. This is followed by a ten-week stabilisation phase, producing a darker, more stable, nutrient-rich compost. We hope it will help Westbank’s gardening team to cultivate tasty and nutritious fruit and veg to supplement other supplies to its cookery school, larders and cafe.”
Katie Elliott, Westbank’s Head of Fundraising and Marketing, says,”Westbank has been Highly Commended in the Exeter Sustainability Awards for two years running, each time our category has been sponsored by Coastal Recycling, which led to fruitful conversations between us. We are incredibly grateful for their donation of six tonnes of soil improver. Whilst it’s difficult to put a financial value on this gift, a tonne of soil improver costs between £100 and £150. Coastal Recycling kindly delivered ours directly to the site, where it is helping us to grow fresh produce for use throughout the charity.”
