Answer in both cases is 'depends what is in it!' Ash from bonfires is fine if all you are burning is untreated wood but not if you are burning wood that has bee treated with, for example, a preservative. As to vacuum cleaner dust again, it depends what you are vacuuming up. In theory yes but I put into our brown bin for the council to compost.

If your bonfire ash is garden rubbish,for instance,those things a bit too big to have added to your compost heap,I imagine it must be OK.I burn the brussel Sprout stumps and various other stuff and I do add it all to the garden,hoping it will help the texture of the soil.I have done this for years .More experienced gardeners may tell us differently,I would also be interested to see what others can tell us.

If you google 'composting.',it tells you what is acceptable in your bin..you will see that vacuum dust is on the tick list ..I always put mine in....

I put ash from the woodburner down but have read somewhere that it shouldn't be used near fruit and vegetable growing areas if firelighters were used (kerosene etc.).

What are you vacuuming, Pt? If your carpets/rugs are man-made fibres, then they won't rot. If they're wool, then fine.

Hi Everyone. Our bonfires are made up from wood and leaves, cut back from trees/shrubs, and like you've already said Justvera, stuff from the veggie plot that is too big to go into the compost. So OH is ok to layer it into the compost!
As for me putting the vaccuming on - I'm now not so sure! I think the carpet in my bedroom could be man-made - perhaps I should have a new carpet... ?!! (But before I do that I'll google composting!) Thanks everyone for the advice too.

I would agree if the carpets are new,Gattina..and most have some man made fibres in these days,but if they aren't,it is mainly dust,dead skin and hair anyway,which would be fine..and any fibres would be so miniscule,I don't think it would be detrimemtal ,adding it to the compost or garden...

I can't bear the thought of composting hoover contents - what about all the animal hairs - yuk - they surely can't compost down - or do you pick them out? I bought some local authority compost a couple of years ago and it had all sorts of nasties in it - loads of blue plastic - and what about all the things thrown in the council composting bins such as blighted roses and potatoes, they can't do your garden much good - or am I wrong?

Just adding a comment because I wish to read this thread. Thanks. :o)

I agree Cammomile I would never buy the LA compost, unfortunately they now sell it on to be used in commercial mixes... One of our friends at the RBGE explained it is all composted at such a high temperature that it kills everything but I'm not convinced and I definitely don't like the idea of cooked food, meat scraps etc. being composted.

I want to pick up on the woodash point - it's okay to add some by sprinkling it lightly occasionally, but add too much and your heap will be too alkaline.
As for the vacuum contents, hard to say - mine's always full of hair, so if anyone in the house has hair longer than about 6 inches (as I do) I wouldn't have thought it was particularly useful, but otherwise, I can't see the harm. Hopefully you empty the contents immediately after you've collected them though - if you knew what bacteria thrive in vacuum bags and containers if left in there for long, you'd wear an eco suit and mask before emptying.

You could put your Hoover contents into a container and hang it on a tree for the birds to pinch for a lining to their nests!

Personally, having read quite a bit about the contents of the dustbag in an unemptied vacuum cleaner, Grandmage, I wouldn't be prepared to handle it in any way...

Surely its not that bad B.I remember losing the back to an earing a while ago and had to search through all the hair etc. in my hoover bag, agreed it was not pleasant and I also did not find the clip, but I am still alive!! Lol

I've sorted through the contents of my hoover bag several times over the years and been fine - as far as I know. But of course, ignorance is bliss - once you know what might be lurking in there, you don't risk it again without rubber gloves and a dust mask. Or at least, I don't.
I only recently learned what lurks round and inside the taps and under your kitchen sink - I wish I hadn't...

Me thinks B. you read too much. Lol. But now I know I wont be so keen to search through mine, I am glad it is a rare occasion!

Anyone who has pets need only think for a few seconds to realise the sort of matter that 'could' be in the vacuum - I make sure never to let it near my skin.

Thanks everybody - me thinks I've opened a can of worms here!! However, I think I'll stop composting whatever comes out of the Dyson - just in case...

Ah, you have a dyson, bagless presumably, petaltracey. Can I just ask you something about that - on the tv ads, they show the machine being emptied - the dirt just slides out easily into the bin. It appears to be dirty sand rather than the dust rolls, fluff, hair etc I get in my bagless cleaner, so does the dirt from yours just fall out on its own straight into the bin?

As a vegetarian I am horrified to learn that 'brown bin' waste might be going in commercial composts. I have nothing against people's own choice to eat meat, but there is no way I want to risk growing vegetables in decomposing carcasses from a saftey point of view, I should add. There are a lot of risks from offal and uncooked meat and so on, BSE prions for example. I am not attacking meat eaters.

There is a method of composting that a lot of councils use which involves it reaching a very high temperature indeed - its turned regularly by diggers, but the actual method is a patented secret by its inventor. Many councils have started using the system because it reduces green waste and recycled scraps to useable compost in a very short space of time. I keep meaning to check whether my council is one of them...

Bamboo we have a Dyson and yes, the dust and crud does fall our easily!

I also have a bagless cleaner..so no need to touch it at all..and it is emptied every week,regardless of whether it's full or not..I also wash the filters on a regular basis..and as I have very short hair,and OH lost most of his a long time ago. :o)...and no pets..I will continue to carry on as I always have..no problem with that at all,or worries..

I think we worry far too much about germs etc. they are saying we are far too clean these days and are not building up enough imunity to these viruses and that anti-biotics are not touching certain illnesses anymore, so think we should handle our hoover rubbish and maybe stop spraying anti-bac spray everywhere!

Agree with you Gill!

Thanks Lil. You Ok?

Yes thanks....thicker skin transplant was a success.....so far ;)))

Sounds painfull Lil!! :~)

I agree,G.mage..Good basic hygiene is more important ..like soap and hot water for hand washing,after handling anything..far too many 'sterile' products on the market,to try and convince people they need them...

Glad you op went well Lil..you will be much better now you have 'thicker skin' I've had it for a long time now..I can recommend it ! :o))

LOL B.

Lol @ Bloomer here as well!

ha ha, you two .:o))

Sorry to add a contentious note...but I sometimes have to manually pull muck out of my Dyson....BARE HANDED!!!...after unsuccessfully bashing it about in order to release its load. Full of dog hairs and God knows what. If it was just sandy dusty type stuff there'd be no problem. Bamboo...you can't leave me hanging like this...what's in it?:-))

If you empty it after using it each time,Bornagain, no problem, but leave it in place, and there may well be some very nasty bacteria growing in there, not the least of which is one we all know - staphylococcus (MRSA), though not necessarily the multiple resistant form. Most are fine so long as you have no entry points such as small cuts or a split anywhere, but some you don't want to be breathing in either. They've all, obviously, got long and complicated Latin names and frankly, it's bad enough knowing the Latin for plants, never mind remembering the Latin of all the bacteria, lol. I do recall some are fungal spores which are pretty easy to breath in. Just empty the damned thing every time you use it.
I got rid of my bagless one and replaced with one which uses disposable bags. I got fed up bashing all the filters (I used to do it on the balcony) and pulling the dust out of the bagless one - by the time I'd emptied and cleared the damned thing, I was covered in dust and every plant on the balcony had a layer of grey all over it. And heaven forbid you choose a slightly windy day, it'd be blowing back through the open window into the room you'd just cleaned. Drove me utterly bonkers, by the time I'd finished I needed a complete change of clothes and a shower. I put up with it for six months and then thought I must be crazy, I'm off to Argos for a bagged cylinder, thanks... much less trouble. Mine wasn't a Dyson though, and I do have long hair which periodically decides its going to fall out in handfuls, so all the dust in my hoover was a solid lump held together with strands of hair. Yuk...
By the way, the reason I didn't get a Dyson in the first place was because it wasn't easy to find out the air watts.For those who don't know, the wattage of the engine is not related to how well the thing sucks up debris, so you could have a machine that uses 2,000 watts of electricity (motor) yet has an air watt rating of 200. Which means you're using a lot of electricity but not collecting much debris. You need an air watt rating minimum of over 300 for efficiency, and many manufacturers make it next to impossible to find out that figure.
I ended up with a bagged Bosch with a motor rating of 1300w and an air watt rating of 310. Job done, lovely.

Have to agree with you Bornagain. Love my Dyson for its cleaning ability, but what a mess cleaning the bin, especially with 4 cats!

We had a Dyson, and was a bit underwhelmed by it's performance after all the hype. Got a dear little Vax now - very, very light to carry up and down stairs, but the suction is so strong that it almost sucks the whole rug in! (don't do carpets in Italy) I have to get OH to stand on one end of it to anchor it while I vacuum. Incredibly easy to empty, too. Tried new Vax carpet shampooer out last week, too. Things have never been cleaner - you should have seen the dirt that came out of what I thought were fairly clean rugs. Yeugh! OH and the cats better keep moving or I could be turning on them next.

My sister nearly sucked the budgie up the hoover when we were youngsters - lazy way to clean out the cage! (No animal was hurt during this performance and it lived out a full and happy life). My sister however, learned a salutary lesson!

OMG, Cammomile!