UK Market For Home Compost Bins 2009
Following several years of heavy promotion of home compost bins, firstly by local authorities and latterly by WRAP, there had been suggestions that the market for home compost bins was saturated. Our research, commissioned from Resource Futures, investigates this claim by considering factors that influence the uptake of home-composting bins such as the presence of charged garden waste collection services, age group and home composting participation rates to predict the potential for additional home composting bin distribution across England.
Results show there are still extensive areas with a lot of immediate un-tapped potential for home composting in terms of meeting the demand for home composting bins amongst new recruits and also those households that are already composting at home. Indeed, the statistical model presented in the report offers strong evidence that the market for home composting bins, is far from saturated, particularly considering that the methodology applied is a conservative one. Even those areas that have already pushed home composting can still do more.
“It has been suggested that the home composting market is ‘saturated’ at 35% of households with gardens participating”, said Dr Julian Parfitt, Research and Technical Director at Resource Futures, “but there is no reason why a local authority that has achieved this level of participation shouldn’t now be pushing towards 45% or 50%. Home composting remains the most cost-effective way for dealing with garden waste and householders that are willing to compost at home should be given every encouragement to get involved and to remain involved.”