APARTMENT COMMUNITY
A. Executive Summary
Whether you are a local school, community centre, community garden, or an apartment building or residential building or an unincorporated community group in the local neighbourhood, community composting has numerous benefits to engage with the local community and enhance your reputation.
This report summarises some of the findings from a series of 12 interviews conducted throughout 2022-23 on the operations, benefits and challenges of a range of apartment and community composting and food waste recycling approaches.
B. Findings and Benefits
The operation and efficiency of community composting is shaped by the organisation‘s structure, funding and business model, composting/food waste recycling method, space available, available people power, as well as the leadership and policy support from council. The organisations interviewed reported community composting provided local organisations with the following benefits.
ENVIRONMENTAL
Composting improves local soil quality and sequestrates carbon into soil. Local community avoids food waste and sources of carbon emissions at landfill, centralised organics processing sites and during associated transport.
SOCIAL
Composting reduces waste contract fees and provides a fundraising avenue from the sale of compost and related products.
ECONOMIC
Diversified revenue streams for organisations.
FINANCIAL
Composting enhances community engagement with sustainability, regenerative and circular economy practices as well as advances community inclusion through engagement and events.
EDUCATION
Provides formal and informal education opportunities about circular economy, sustainability, regenerative agriculture, climate change mitigation, carbon sequestration, and soil quality.
C. Barriers and How to Respond
Below is a table of barriers and limitations for establishment and expansion of community compost initiatives, and how to deal with them.
Barrier
Perceived effort and complexity to establish
Lack of technical knowledge
Lack of funding/capital support and defined business model
How it limits establishment and expansion How to deal with them
Organisations may be hesitant to commit or take steps to understand the quantity and nature of work it takes to establish.
Unable to choose the system that works for the organisation and establish processes to manage the carbon, nitrogen, water and air ratios as the four most important factors for composting.
Funding support generally supports infrastructure setup. This leaves the initiatives to run on volunteer basis for majority of interviewees.
This can be addressed by starting small, to see if further expansion would suit the organisation’s vision and goals.
Basic check of your system. Does it look dry? Add (moistened/soaked) carbon source. Does it look too compact? Aerate it, flip it. Can you see only scraps? Add carbon source and mix through.
Apply for grants from local, state, federal government environment. Solicit donation for tools and compost instruments from the local community to demonstrate need and viability before further funding is available. Share existing tools in the community
Lack of consistent volunteers/physical people power
Lack of skills and resources in communication with users and neighbours around the community compost hub.
Contamination/input requirement.
Lack of resources/documented processes in training team members who manage the community compost hubs
Leadership/policy support from council
Physical constraints (people power to manually aerate and flip compost) and social constraints (attitudes and food and garden organic program duplication) hinder volunteer participation.
Community engagement and education is crucial for the success of community compost initiatives.
Misunderstanding of input requirements between community compost, home composting and food and garden organic program often results in contamination that needs to be manually removed.
When core team members are on leave or stop being involved, it is critical to have others to manage the facility smoothly.
The leadership and policy support from council shapes the operation of community compost initiatives.
Community members with limited physical capacities can provide education to other community members. Invite food waste donors to volunteer at your organisation to learn processes. Alternatively, engage university students in volunteering programs.
Streamline communication processes i.e., Facebook, Instagram, and/or messaging tools. Communicate about harvesting, working bees, and avoiding contamination is critical for the ongoing viability of the community compost hub.
Provide education opportunities and signage onsite and at home (on the kitchen caddy and fridge) to remind people what can and cannot go in and why.
Write down who collects carbon source from where, how often, using what means. Write down who puts what content into what instrument, where and how often. What other actions did that person take.
Gather interested people to speak to your local council liaison about policy changes that could makes building a resilient local community easier.
D. Recommendations
For local organisations, who don’t have the additional human resources to start a community compost initiative.
1. You can start with 1 person doing 15 min/week, and gradually scaling up engagement and input as resources and available space builds overtime.
2. Engage local community through education about the value of home and community composting, harvesting of compost and planting activities.
For existing community gardens, and organisations that understand the value of urban greening projects and that have an existing team.
1. Develop and maintain a productive relationship with your local council (council liaison staff and councillor) and land owners.
2. Consult with the existing team on the priorities for the community composting initiative that aligns with overall goals and visions for the team and the organisation.
3. Design engagement and operation processes that align with the above priorities and the existing funding and human resource available.
For organisations that have a community compost facility that is not in action.
1. Re-examine the priorities. Is inhouse knowledge and resources sufficient to restart a community compost operation in the next 12-24 months?
2. If yes, does the current infrastructure reflect the weekly operation in 12-24 months’ time?
3. If yes, start collecting scraps and carbon source from local community.
4. If no, what infrastructure would be workable for your organisation?
E. Appendix
a. Appendix: 1 Initiative Organisational Structure and Funding Source
Type of initiative Organisational structure
Apartment building Body corporates
Community garden and stand-alone compost operation
Incorporated entity or un-incorporated community group auspice by non forprofit organisations
Funding source
Funded through owner’s corporation and owner corporation agreement with waste contractor that provide organic recycling services
Receive infrastructure donation from the local community, businesses and local government. In addition, they were able to engage with local government, state, and federal grants in the expansion of their service
Share waste host Individual Self funded
Decentralised compost subscription service For purpose business Self-funded, government grants and private investment
Public community gardens Un-incorporated entity turned into incorporated entity No funding required
b. Appendix 2 Initiative processing volume, human resources required, systems in engaged and participating household numbers.
Capital Scraps 2602
South Melbourne Sustainability group 3205
a year = 76kg/wk
YIMBY 3450 800KG/mth = 200KG/wk
Community Garden
H (including planning and burying and closing the beds)
FTE and for each host 2-3 H/wk
compost bays
bays systems for majority 20 bays in total
Chippendale 2008
Gore st Community Compost 3065 1.5
Finbar Neighbourhood House 3121 Around 4T/wk 1.5 days/wk In ground worm farm, stand alone worm farm, compost bins, aerobins Between 30-40 systems 200 households on Finbar side and 200 households on school side
Kensington Townhall Compost Hub 3031
Urban Coup CoHousing Community 3056
Note: Kegworth Public School Community Share Waste Initiative and Market Garden Park Community Compost don’t have data on processing volume so the data is not included in this table.
Note: Food waste is calculated as 1 cubic meters = 400 KG.
