Compost gearing up for Olympic trial

The Olympic Park is set to become part of a major environmental trial that could guide the way green roofs are created in the future.


WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme) is working with Surrey-based firm Bio Regional to use quality compost for green roofs on two buildings in the Olympic Park.

Both the International Broadcast Centre and the Media Press Centre will be home to the trial roofs.

The Olympic Park is one of a number of sites across the UK where green compost and food-included compost produced to the PAS 100 specification will be used for green roofs.

The trials will allow WRAP to publish case studies documenting how else compost can be used, and if successful, could convince other organisations to use it widely.

Paul Mathers, landscape and regeneration programme manager at WRAP, told edie: “If we can make it work at the Olympics, it adds more weight to [the results].

“The idea is to answer the question but with some robust science behind it.”

Other trials will also be carried out into the role that quality compost can play in restoring brownfield land.

Mr Mathers told edie the compost will not be used to remediate the land, but to enrich soil on brownfield sites and allow it to be used as quality topsoil for crops.

It is hoped this will discourage developers from disposing of soil from sites and cut waste.

The compost-enriched topsoil will be used for growing bioenergy crops, and in projects combating soil erosion and aiding slope stabilisation.

Kate Martin

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