meet the Island's needs.'' Site Management officer for the Ministry of Works and Engineering Mr. Dennis Spencer, along with his foreman and two operators visited Elora, Ontario in March to study their "trend-setting composting programme.'' And they were interviewed by two Canadian newspapers.

Mr. Spencer told the newspapers they were in Ontario to get an idea of how to mix Bermuda's organic waste by observing the compost programme at the Compost Management company.

The Island composts many tons of horticultural material every year but is looking at ways of expanding its operation to include food and other organic waste.

While in Ontario, the group visited Port Colborne's Earthworks programme compost site for a demonstration of the equipment used to turn biodegradable materials into compost soil.

They also visited restaurants and residents with backyard composters to see aspects of the process.

The paper stated Port Colborne's programme started in 1993 to divert garbage from the landfill site.

Free composters were offered to all residents.

"It's the most economical way we can go without using a lot of equipment and it doesn't take up a lot of space,'' Mr. Spencer told the newspaper.

Mr. Paul Taylor, who moved his Compost Management company to Elora, Ontario five years ago, was host to Mr. Spencer and other representatives of the Bermuda Government.

The group spent a week working with heavy equipment and dealing with waste similar to that in Bermuda.

Mr. Taylor said: "They'll be certified experts able to operate their own facility.'' Yesterday Mr. Spencer told The Royal Gazette he felt the compost programme was "tailor-made'' for Bermuda because in Ontario they used only payloader trucks to stir the piles of wood chippings and food waste.

"In most of the magazines I've seen compost programmes use purpose built machinery to turn the piles, but because of limited space here other machinery would be too excessive for us to use.

"Using a payloader, which we use anyhow, is easier for us to turn the pile over, that's why the programme is tailor-made. What we are doing here at Marsh Folly is using the existing dump site to compost on.'' Mr. Spencer said the group learned it did not need to go through the expense of buying a special piece of equipment to compost.

"We were able to learn how to compost looking at the beginning project and seeing the end which resulted in compost.

"We are making compost now to cover the Marsh Folly dump site with three feet of compost and rubble mix.'' Mr. Spencer also said a company official from Compost Management came from Ontario a few weeks ago to check to see how the programme in Bermuda was doing and he was "quite pleased that we had started something and it was actually working.''