Leicester is No Place for Peat

At our last meeting, we decided to run a 'Peat Free' campaign. We discussed peat being used as a growing medium in bags of compost sold at garden centres and the lesser known facts about peat locking away carbon and keeping it out of our atmosphere. 

Over the last 10,000 years, UK peatlands have sequestered 5.5 billion tonnes of carbon - nearly 40 times the amount of carbon stored in our woodlands. Peatlands contain about half of the UK's stored carbon. Globally, peatlands store about half a trillion tonnes of carbon, trapping organic matter underwater. Unfortunately, digging up the peat enables oxygen to get to it, so the organic matter starts to decay, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The environmental damage caused by extracting peat for compost is immense. It releases huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. Peat bogs are also excellent areas of biodiversity, so peat extraction contributes to habitat and species loss. 

In 2011 the government published a White Paper with targets for the end of peat use in horticulture. The aim of this was for all compost available to amateur gardeners to be peat-free by 2020. Unfortunately, the targets were voluntary and most garden centres chose to ignore the issue and still sell bags of compost containing peat. 

So, we are asking garden centres to reconsider selling peat.  Our ask is that people visit their local garden centre and see what they are selling, then send them a letter (as we cannot face to face campaign at the moment), requesting them to reconsider their position. A copy of a standard letter is available on Google Docs.  If you do send a letter perhaps you can let us know in the comments below so that we can keep a record. 

There is also another letter for people to send to schools to ask them to go peat free if they buy compost for any gardening projects. We have already had one positive response from a school. Let us know if you get any more - then we can add their name onto our list. Here is the link to Google docs.

Also, we are asking people to pledge to buy peat free themselves. The pledge can be found at  https://actionnetwork.org/forms/pledge-to-use-peat-free-compost. Facebook users can also sign up to our Facebook group to share information about peat-free gardening.

This is the beginning of our campaign, as, hopefully, COVID restrictions get lifted we hope to step up the 'Leicester is No Place for Peat' campaign.  Watch this space......!