Join us as we push for a peat-free growing world this month. We have tips on what bagged potting mixes to buy, how to make your own, and how to urge your local retailer to go peat-free. The government has promised to ban peat from bagged composts by 2024, but we think they can go further, and sooner. We need to ban peat from all those millions of plants grown in peat-based compost.
Why?
Peat bogs are one of the biggest carbon capture natural environments – storing more carbon than a forest. According to the Wildlife Trust, peat extracted for horticulture in the UK and Ireland last year released up to 880,000 tonnes of CO2 – equivalent in emissions to driving to the moon and back a whopping 4,600 times. They are also sites of natural beauty, wonder and biodiversity. Peat belongs in the ground, not in our potting composts.
