Winter’s almost done – get that compost on the garden!

Volunteers at Addi Road Community Organisation have smothered bare lawn with cardboard and compost from the onsite food pantry – a new microforest is underway.

Community raises $100,000 in Mount Alexander Shire

telling council to recognise community-role in waste management
The long running discussion with the Mount Alexander Shire Council on whether or not to roll out FOGO in the same manner as other Local Government Areas has taken a big step towards a community-driven or at least a co-designed approach. Our friends at YIMBY have joined up with other community organisations, including LOCCAL, and raised $100,000 to co-invest. Their aim is to convince government that the kerbside FOGO collection system is not the only tool to solve organic waste, and that a holistic waste strategy must include support for small-scale localised composting, with all the benefits
this delivers by means of behavioural shifts, CO2 emission reductions from transport, community cohesion and organic growing. This is looking to become the first example of community composting being integrated into a council organics management system,
an alternative to government leaving composting to the waste industry.

Read the Organics Partnership Proposal.

Read the local media coverage: New organics partnership forms | Midland Express

Understanding the Australian compost community – survey

LOCCAL and Ecology & Community are teaming up on a study capturing the approaches, experiences, challenges and solutions of small-scale composters. A similar study was undertaken on an international audience in 2023, which is free to read here. This year the study will focus more on the Australian community, and with a growing landscape of community composters, and the potential

TAKE PART IN THE COMPOSTING SURVEY

Growing number of community composters in Australia

LOCCAL turns 100! Not quite in years, but there are now just over 100 community composting organisations in our alliance, and this resonates with the growing interest in composting in general. This gives us all more reach as composters, and a bigger network of other people like us, collecting greens and browns, turning piles, nourishing gardens, and contemplating the next adaptations to our composting systems together.

The small group of volunteers that turn the piles in the LOCCAL administration are just like you, and we want you to think of this alliance as a group that exists because of your work and interest in composting. To give this reach meaning, please think of LOCCAL as
something you can take part in with your ideas, especially (and easily) as a platform to communicate with others in this network. You can post your news to this growing audience by tagging @LOCCAL anytime you would like to share your work with others.

• If you are writing blogs, articles, webpages or other pieces that you would like to share among the LOCCAL network, just send us an email at info@loccal.org and we will link your piece and share. And come to us with any other ideas you would like to execute around the topic of community composting in Australia!

Logo design competition

What symbol would you be proud to wear you’re out composting or in the community around your part of Australia? Click here and get your sketching pencils out and let us know! We will vote to choose the ultimate composting logo, and then produce the chosen logo design on a fully compostable t-shirt.

What’s on in August

(A few highlights in different states. Check out the full calendar of composting events this month)

1 August – Byron Bay, NSW
Food Waste to Worm Compost Workshop [Byron Bay]
9:30 am – 3:00 pm AEST
Food Waste to Worm Compost Workshop — The Farm Byron Bay

5 August – Winthrop, WA
EcoHub Networking Event
6:30 pm – 8:00 pm AEST
EcoHub Networking Event

7 August – Toowong, QLD
Horticulture Series – From the Ground Up: Composting and Worms
10:00 am – 1:30 pm AEST
Horticulture Series – From the Ground Up: Composting and Worms

9 August – Bunbury, WA
Small Space Composting Alternatives
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm AEST
Small Space Composting Alternatives

15 August – Molyullah, VIC
Making and using compost at home and on the farm
8:30 am – 2:00 pm AEST
Making and using compost at home and on the farm

16 August – Botany, NSW
From Patch to Plate: Grow it. Make it. Eat it.
10:00 am – 4:00 pm AEST
From Patch to Plate: Grow it. Make it. Eat it.

19 August – Gumeracha, SA
Composting Made Easy
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm AEST
Composting Made Easy