How Should I Compost Leaves in the HOTBIN?
If you have relatively small amounts you can shred these and mix them in with other waste each week, ensuring bulking agent and shredded paper are also added.
Top Tip: Shred leaves before adding to speed up breakdown, this can be done with a leaf blower or a lawn mower.
Composting Laurel Leaves
Laurel leaves can be added into a HOTBIN, however, we would strongly advise adding them in small quantities and gradually rather than adding a lot in any one feed. For best effect, we would recommend roughly cutting or shredding them before adding them into the HOTBIN to increase their surface area and to add other easier to digest waste types into the unit along with them such as grass cuttings and/or vegetable peelings as well as bulking agent and shredded paper. If you get a strong whiff of almonds from your HOTBIN we would suggest that you do not add any more laurel leaves into the HOTBIN for a couple of weeks to allow the HOTBIN to rebalance itself internally. Please however do continue to add other new materials into the HOTBIN during this period though to keep new heat being generated and the process going.
Composting Leaves and Grass
Leaves can be stored and are great to mix in with easy to digest waste such as grass. If you have a large lawn and trees mix grass and leaves 50/50 by volume, then add into HOTBIN. This mix will get to 60°C and reduce rapidly enabling you to top up in 5-7 days. The leaf/grass combination allows the high temperature generated by the fast decomposition of the grass to help break down the leaves leaving a small amount of lignin based material in the base to finish off.