Sales of peat combost to be banned in UK for climate reasons

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Sales of peat compost to gardeners will be banned from 2024, the government has said. Ministers will also give £50m to support the restoration of 35,000 hectares of peatland by 2025, about 1% of the UK’s total.

The UK’s peatlands store three times as much carbon as its forests. But the vast majority are in a degraded state, and are emitting CO2, which drives the climate crisis.

The environment secretary, George Eustice, announced £500m to fund a tripling of tree planting in England to reach 7,000 hectares a year by 2024 and said a new 2030 target for wildlife populations would be set. A species reintroduction taskforce was also unveiled, to take forward work on recovering species lost to England, such as wildcats and beavers.

Restoring peatlands and increasing woodlands are vital to tackling global heating and boosting biodiversity.

In April, gardening experts, conservationists and scientists called on the UK government to ban the sales of peat compost by the end of 2021, after its goal of a voluntary phasing out by 2020 – set in 2011 – proved an “abject failure”.

Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England, said: “Restoring our peatlands, planting trees where they are most needed, and reintroducing species is a key part of aiding nature’s recovery.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/18/sales-of-peat-compost-to-gardeners-to-be-banned-from-2024?

[sarahb 17,188]

I'm growing a venus flytrap and all these websites are telling me to use peat to grow it in because it contains no nutrients. But I ended up buying coco coir as an alternative because it's more sustainable (but the soaking to get out any salt is a pain in the ass ). 

[HuffsAhoy 7,433]

Peat is so fascinating!! All the swampland near me has peat underneath the soil. I remember back in 2011 there was a wildfire that burned for nearly 3 months because the peat beneath the soil caught fire.