Spring is here! There’s a lot to share in this newsletter — a composting odyssey through the UK, an important update from YIMBY in Castlemaine, news from the USA, and two events coming up that we’d love you to join us for.
UK compost odyssey
Clytie has just returned from a whirlwind trip through parts of the UK where she visited a number of community composting projects, met some amazing and inspiring people, and presented at the Royal Geographical Society’s Annual International Conference in London. A full blog post is coming soon, but here’s a taste of what she saw.
Brighton
The Brighton & Hove Food Partnership is supported by the local council and includes a thriving community composting program.
The Brighton and Sussex area is also home to some organisations LOCCAL has had the pleasure of connecting with previously — including Compost Club, run by Michael Kennard, who many of you will remember as a speaker at LOCCAL’s International Compost Awareness Week 2026 convergence, and the Mycelium Network, a resource-sharing network focused on composting and fermentation.
Devon
Clytie met up with Nicky Scott, who has spent years championing community composting across the UK through the Devon Community Composting Network — mentoring, educating, and writing some of the best practical books on the subject. Meeting him in person and spending time looking at composting activities together was a real highlight. In South Hams, Mellissa Harvey from Sustainable South Hams showed also around a number of wonderful projects as a Compost Mentor.
The thread running through what she saw in the UK was familiar – the joy people experience creating compost together, and the resilience communities find there, despite real challenges including unstable funding, shifting political policy, and time poverty among volunteers. Sound familiar?
London — the Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference
The trip culminated in attending and presenting at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)’s Annual International Conference, as part of the session Cultivating Just Community Food Systems through Food Sharing, organised by Oona Morrow (Wageningen University) and Anna Davies (Trinity College Dublin).
The whole conference was very enriching, with many topics from a broad range of areas which provided a lot to think about, particularly around the gap between ambitious top-down policy targets and the messy, relational reality of getting things done on the ground. If that sounds like the community composting experience in Australia — it is.
A full write-up is coming in a future blog post. Stay tuned.
YIMBY update — a difficult moment, and what comes next
Many of you will have been following the situation facing YIMBY Composters in Castlemaine, Victoria. It’s an important story for our whole composting community.
When Mount Alexander Shire Council flagged its intention to introduce kerbside organics (FOGO) collection, YIMBY organised their Go Slow on FOGO petition and formed the Mount Alexander Organics Partnership with local farmers, householders, businesses, not-for-profits and experts. Through this, they crowdfunded $100,000, and put forward a counter-proposal for a twelve-month trial of a locally responsive, whole-of-shire system incorporating home, community and on-farm composting.
Their argument was clear and well-evidenced – YIMBY’s localised, human-scaled collection has already built a strong and resilient community built on familiarity between people and the more-than-human world. A trial would have cost the council nothing and shown what was possible.
However, on 18 August, the council voted to proceed with kerbside collection from 1 July 2027, and declined to support the trial.
YIMBY responded with characteristic grace:
“We are disappointed by this outcome. We are grateful to everyone who signed the petition, donated money, wrote to their councillor, came to the meeting, asked questions and shared our vision for a different way of managing organics in our shire. At this point in time, it is business as usual for YIMBY.”
And indeed this is what they have done. Since the decision, they have continued running workshops, welcoming new composters, making compost from spoiled food to support fire-affected communities, and doing the amazing, vital work that no kerbside bin can replicate.
LOCCAL continues to stand with YIMBY. Their story is a reminder of why the case for community composting needs to be made loudly, clearly, and often.
Community composting scaling up in the USA
A report that came out earlier this year from the USA confirms that community composting continues to grow — scaling up and delivering real results for communities. Read the full update on our website:
USA Update — New Census Shows Community Composting Scaling Up and Delivering Results
Join us – two events coming up in October
We have a big Sunday night coming up on 11 October, and we’d love for you to be part of it.
Small Creatures, Big Impact — Worm Farming Webinar
Sunday 11 October | 7.00pm AEDT | Free or pay what you can
A practical conversation with Kim Frankowiak from Great Southern Living Soil — 20 years of hands-on worm farming experience, from domestic to community-scale.
We’d also love you to send in your questions, photos, and worm farm stories before the night — email info@loccal.org by Friday 9 October with the subject line Small Creatures.
LOCCAL Annual General Meeting
Sunday 11 October | 8.00pm AEDT | Free
Directly after the webinar, we will be holding our Annual General Meeting — presenting our annual report and electing committee members for the year ahead. If you’ve ever thought about getting more involved with LOCCAL, this is the night. We have positions available at every level of commitment.
Until next time
With warm regards,
Clytie and the LOCCAL team
loccal.org.au
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