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What is Community Composting? |
The classification of composting
There are three main ways in which the organisation of composting can be classified
- Home composting is where an individual composts in the home environment without any sharing of resources outside their household.
- Large scale centralised composting is where a waste recycling company collects the raw material from several different sources and composts it centrally. Such schemes often use a significant amount of energy in the transportation of the raw material.
- Community composting lies in the middle ground between home composting and large scale centralised composting. .
Community composting
Community composting is where a group of people gather together and share a composting scheme. A suitable site is chosen in the area where the group live and the raw material, the compost feedstock, is collected from the local community. The waste is then composted on site into a useable resource. The compost is given away, sold or exchanged. It can be used on individual's gardens or on larger scale projects. The work is generally carried out by volunteers but some schemes now have paid employees.
Community composting offers the possibility of sharing ideas, resources and enthusiasm with a wide range of people with different skills and experience . As community composting schemes are often based in the urban centres, where the level of compostable waste to landfill is high, they offer a unique opportunity to turn a high percentage of that waste to a useable compost. This is done without the consequent costs that transporting the compost feedstock* over large distances brings.
There can sometimes be resistance to new schemes, but if deployed sensitively, community composting is valued not only by the participants but also by the wider community. Community composting schemes are also valued by local authorities as they make a contribution to the reduction in waste going to landfill and help the local authorities meet their recycling targets.