With the opening of the new waste management site at Koshi which will be featured in this Sunday’s paper, Commissioner for the Environment Charalampos Theopemptou is advising home owners to create their own compost bins.

It is a fantastic idea - and one that prompted me to drive to Super Home today and pick up a wooden crate to start work on my own –little heap to help a greener Cyprus. 

Actually my late grandmother in Finland had one for many years and when were there in the summer months we had a small compost bin in the kitchen in which we would dump on the heap before bedtime.

Composting is brilliant - it’s an inexpensive natural process that transforms your kitchen and garden waste into a valuable and nutrient rich food for your garden.

Without sounding like a salesman - just about everything you eat is compostable (but some people do avoid putting in meat / fish) and everything else, for the most part is recyclable.

This has several affects on a household: the rubbish bin doesn't smell because there's no food in it and you barely make any garbage.

It’s brilliant! – In the coming weeks expect to hear more about composting on my broadcasts, because it will provide a welcome distraction from local government austerity measures and the British election.

That said, Mr. Chas (my adorable Bischon Frise) is curios about the new heap and has already marked the territory as his own.

I have a funny feeling he will be spring boarding into the box every time grub in thrown in.

One final tip, on a completely unrelated subject: Avocados are apparently good for people with high levels of cholesterol – can this be true?

One of my collegues in the Armenian service claims that most of the fat in an avocado is monounsaturated - the "good" kind that actually lowers cholesterol levels.

It’s even better than a diet…apparently.