Andrea Cooper is a Women’s Institute Climate Ambassador and head gardener at Braxted Park. Here she talks about the impact on the environment of using peat in garden compost.

AS our gardens start to spring to life again after what feels like the longest winter on record, many of us head to the garden centre to stock up on sacks of multipurpose and other composts.

However, the tempting packaging promising amazing results masks the garden industry’s dirtiest secret - the massive contribution peat harvesting makes towards greenhouse gas emissions, adding to climate change at a time when we need be reducing carbon emissions urgently.

Peatland is the UK equivalent of rain forests, absorbing and holding onto greenhouse gases, locking in billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane.

Extracting the peat releases these gases - a process that continues as the land dries out further.

Eighty per cent of UK peatlands are now damaged and these collectively release a staggering 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere annually. One tonne of CO2 is the equivalent of a plane trip to New York and back.

There are many other reasons these precious landscapes need to be preserved.

Peatlands support a wide range of rare flora and fauna, which we are in danger of losing forever.

There are a number of fantastic restoration programmes underway around the UK, but because peat forms slowly at a rate of one millimetre per year, peatlands are difficult and complex to restore.

Peatlands act like a sponge, soaking up rainwater, so help prevent flooding, as this water is then released more slowly.

Twenty-five per cent of the UK drinking water is filtered by peat bogs.

Without this process, rainwater is discoloured and requires expensive treatment.

Home gardeners account for a staggering 69 per cent of peat usage in the UK, using a total of three billion litres of peat in their gardens every year.

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That’s the equivalent of 1,200 Olympic swimming pools full.

Despite some moves to reduce peat extraction in the UK, it sadly continues, with the horticultural industry’s excess requirements met by imported peat from Ireland and Eastern Europe. The UK Government advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change, has stated that peat use in horticulture must be phased out by 2023.

Defra has recently changed the deadline for the phase out from 2020 to 2030 - an additional 140 million tonnes of unnecessary CO2 minimum will be released as a result.

To continue to extract peat from these crucial wetlands habitats until 2030 will simply to be too late.

Most stockists offer at least one peat-free alternative and, although often slightly more expensive, increased demand will result in the prices falling.

There are lots of different formulas out there, which are based on a range of media including wool and bracken, coir, wood fibre and green compost, which give excellent results.

Another alternative is to make your own garden compost to use in potting up.

As well as voting with your pounds, consider signing the petitions aimed at getting Defra to rethink its current stance - chng.it/X6RZhcXg and petition.parliament.uk/petitions/562054.

Or write to your local garden centre explaining the issue and urging them to stock peat free compost and displaying prominently, with information about the importance of keeping peat in the ground.

If you are on Facebook, can I recommend you follow Jonathan N Fuller. I know he did a presentation to the WI recently and his work is fantastic.

For supplies please contact sales@dalefootcomposts.co.uk

And jennifer@reminscotland.com