Garden centres unable to phase out peat in compost due to Government’s biomass subsidies

Efforts to replace peat in compost are being undermined by the Government’s biomass subsidies, scientists and environmentalists have said.

Experts, campaigners and the horticulture industry called on the government to review the £1bn in subsidies given to wood chip-burning power stations each year amid evidence that the policy hampers efforts to stop environmentally-harmful peat extraction.

Garden centres and suppliers are under pressure to scrap peat, often sourced from Ireland, because of its damaging impact on the environment.

Just under half of all compost sold in the UK last year contained peat, down from 58 per cent the year before. One of the key alternatives is compost based on bark or wood fibre.

But charities and companies say a rapid phase-out risks making compost unavailable to gardeners because companies must compete with biomass plants for raw materials.

Peat bogs are a significant carbon store but have been damaged over decades by companies stripping them for use in compost. The government says preserving them is a key part of its environmental strategy.

Catherine Dawson, technical director at Melcourt, which produces wood fibre-based products, said that while her own company was not in competition with power stations for these materials, it was causing supply issues for other companies.

“The effect for the consumer is that the more environmentally suitable peat-free products are made to be more expensive at a time when we're trying to encourage consumers to avoid peat,” she said.

Last month a Coventry University study highlighted the subsidies as an example of "gaps and inconsistencies" in government policy.

"Over the last 10 years the incentives for using wood biomass for heat and power generation have led to unprecedented increases in the price of wood and have thus made the wood-based materials less competitive for use in growing media," it said.

The Government has said it is considering legislation to achieve a proposed target of 2030 for an end to the sale of the material in compost sold to consumers and used in the gardening industry.

Professor Alistair Griffiths, director of science and collections at the Royal Horticultural Society, said there was “a need to review the impacts of subsidies and competition for wood price with biomass energy plants and to help make the alternative wood fibre ‘raw material’ more available and affordable for growing media manufacturers."

Environmental groups also said that there was a danger of “simply shifting the problem elsewhere” because of sustainability questions about the wood used for biomass.

Jenny Hawley, policy manager at charity Plantlife, said: “If we’re to get serious about tackling the climate emergency we must keep peat in the ground not the growbag and, for this to happen, it must be made as easy as possible for users to pick up sustainable alternatives.”