A. Executive Summary
Community composting initiatives (initiatives) have multi-layered benefits to household, community and local government.
This report summarises the findings from a series to 12 interviews conducted throughout2022-23 ontheoperations,benefits and challenges of a range of apartment and community composting and food waste recycling approaches in Australia. Local government plays an important role in community building, sustainability education, and waste reduction. Footpath garden policy, community compost guidelines, lease agreement and land use permit also foster the growth of community composting initiatives.
C.Benefits
(what value is gained after having set up community compost hubs)
The table below outlines what was discovered through the interviews and demonstrates the multilayered benefits, including financial, social, educational, environmental and economic benefits of community composting that can be unlocked by councils.
TO COUNCIL TO COMMUNITY TO INDIVIDUAL HOUSEHOLD
FINANCIAL
SOCIAL
EDUCATIONAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
ECONOMIC
Diverts waste from kerbside collection (landfill, FOGO, comingle)
Improves relationships between Council and local community
Develops community acceptance of composting/related program
Empowers community self-reliance
Cheaper - if Food and Garden Organic program (FOGO) is opt in
Advances inclusion Increasefood security Increases belonging, connection, agency
Provides opportunities to educate communities on sustainability and circular economy.
Reduces greenhouse gas emission Improves soil quality
Supports small business, start-up and innovation
D. Location and Donor Profile
Diversifies income streamfor community organisations
Increases interhousehold education on food cycle and sustainability
Increases home composter rate
Generates local jobs
- Vic (Metro)
- Vic (Regional)
- Apartments
- Public Land
Initiatives interviewed cover a range of locations including those on public land that were enabled by council managed enclosed public space with lease agreement, obtaining a land use permit, utilising footpath gardening policy, or bokashi bury method in public community gardens Food waste donors travel generally under 5km to drop off food waste. Capital Scraps is an exception that has multiple hubs located within diverse suburbs to process. Information obtained suggest that residents in areas with mixed dwellings types (i.e. high, medium, low density) have ahigher amountoffoodwaste donors.Thelocal natureofdonationbehaviours means that there are ongoing opportunities to form local community connections that advance inclusion and increase sense of belonging.
E. Funding Source (more details see appendix 1)
Funding sources include body corporate arrangements, local community and government donations/grants and one for purpose business. Body Corporate and communityorganisations areable to successfully sustain operation across these different models but aredependent onvolunteers anddonations/grants.This constrains theability to improveefficiencyandexploremoresophisticatedandscalablecollectionincludingthrough restaurants. In contrast, Capital scraps that runs a business operation is the best example for scaling. Their experience suggests that with demand from people who have disposable income, don’t have space and see value in the service, it is possible to establish a viable composting subscription business.
F. Composting Methods
METHODS USED
Waste management company Residential Compost Bin Hungry Bin Worm Farm
Hot Compost Bays Bokashi Bury Inground Worm Farm
Initiatives make conscious choices in the methods they use informed by donor access, space available, desired processing volume and available human resources. The majorityofinitiativeshavebetween3and10 compostingsystems. Two havebetween 10-20 systems. Three initiatives have 20 or more active systems.
Except for apartments, half the initiatives use multiple methods. The variety of choices availablemakeiteasyfororganisationto startcomposting.This has addedbenefits as it assists educating the community on the available options for people to start in their ownhome.However,as desiredvolumescales during planning or ad hoc, we see initiatives focus on mainly hot composting bays that require greater investment and skills but can process higher volumes.
G. Managing Human Resources
Initiatives mostly use 1-3 dedicated experts to manage facilities ranging from volunteers to paid staff. Management workloads can be reduced by introducing self-service components, though this needs to be complimented by induction,signage and clear processes to ensure compliance and consistency of output.Initiatives reportthat donors often dropfoodwasteincombinationwithother household activities, school drop-offs, shopping, visiting friends and family, etc… Therefore, sites with 24/7 access, see increased engagement and reduced workload.Manyfindthat self-service drop off combined with managed processing provides a good balance of reducing workload and maintaining quality. The initiative that charges a service fee includes collection and processing by trained staff, but this significantly increases workload and needs to be consistentandreliable to ensure value for money.
H. Processing Volume and End Product Destination
Mostinitiatives increasedcapacity gradually, setting up over 3-6 months, and scaling up as demand grows. The reported volumes are determined by the available space, composting systems, funding and human resources with some indicatingtheycouldscalefurtherwiththe availability of funding. Many established community initiatives can process 100500kg of food waste per week. The composting facilities at Finbar neighbourhoodhouse andadjacentschool
has a largecommunitybase andis able to process 4tonnes offood waste per week.
Many initiatives reached peak volume before and during the pandemic and have experienced a significant drop since and also after council food and garden organic program rollout. However, there remains the scope for expansion as initiatives report local communities’ demand for nutrients is still strong. This canbe fillediffunding and resources were available to expand service to food waste generators that has been sending it to landfill.
Mostcompost madeis returned to onsite garden and provided back to the local community. A major concern with using a waste contract is the lack of understanding of where the end product goes. This shows when the food waste is processed within the community, it also increases transparency on the efforts spent on separating, dropping off and processing food waste are used back in the community.
I. Pests and complaints
Complaints with composting systems overall are infrequent, and most complaints resulted from rats and flies. The nature of food waste recycling requires the system to be in balance When a system is oversubscribed, increasingprocessingtimeand stretching available human resources, the pest risk increases. The interviewees reported when systemandprocesses are designed to bepest proof,usingwiremeshlinedhot compost bays, in ground worm farm and bokashi bury method for example, there are no pest or complaints issues.
J. What’s next
Council plays an important role in fostering community connection, building local resilience, and reducing waste. Funding community compost initiatives can fall into the scope of circular economy, waste reduction, urban forest, build local connection grant programs.
City Compost Network are here to support local organisations to develop self-sustaining community compost initiatives, provide education and connect resources to make community composting a success for the organisations in your municipality.
K. Appendix
a. Appendix 1: Initiative Organisational Structure and Funding Source
Type of initiative Organisational structure Funding source
Apartment building Body corporates Funded through owner’s corporation and owner corporation agreement with waste contractor that provide organic recycling services
Community garden and stand-alone compost operation
Incorporated entity or un-incorporated community group auspice by non forprofit organisations
Receiveinfrastructuredonationfromthe local community,businesses andlocalgovernment. 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-incorporatedentity turned into incorporated entity No funding required
b. Appendix 2: Initiative processing volume, human resources required, systems in engaged and participating household numbers.
South Melbourne Sustainability group 3205
(including planning and burying and closing the beds)
YIMBY 3450 800KG/mth = 200KG/wk 1 FTE and for each host 2-3 H/wk
Pentridge Community Garden 3058
cubic meter/wk including carbon source = 200KG/wk 3-5/wk including education, and picking up carbon
compost bays
bins and compost bays
bays systems for majority 20 bays in total
rows of 3 compost bins and 3 compost bays 12 systems 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
*KegworthPublicSchoolCommunitySharewasteInitiativeandMarket Garden Park Community Compost don’t have data on processing volume so their data is not included in this table. Food waste in above table is calculated as 1 cubic meters = 400 KG.
