By Ernie Harbott

In March 2024, a composter I follow on Facebook participated in the official 30 Day Compost Content Challenge. There was a fee involved and, although it got you access to resources, I didn’t need any help to spruik compost. It’s my passion! But I still wanted to make it MORE people’s passion. And I needed time to prepare and rally the troops. So I scheduled my 30 Day Challenge in May to coincide with International Composting Awareness Week Australia.

Everyone seemed to enjoy it and I survived it, so I thought I’d do it again this year. Composting is now my full time job, and I thought it could contribute to promoting my business Compost Culture.

I planned the 30 days of compost content ahead of time, and scheduled many of the posts. Every day I posted a quote about compost, a compost  cartoon, one of my compost passion t-shirts and the story attached to it, a composting resource like a video, website or book or something fun like a song, joke or film, and a compost education (opinion) piece. 

For the education pieces this year I spent a week exploring each of four topics:

1. WHY COMPOST?
2. WHAT COMPOST NEEDS
3. WAYS TO COMPOST
4. COMPOST YOUR DOUBTS

Those posts are now available in the GUIDES on the Facebook Group Soil Sisters Singleton where the Challenge takes place.

My favourite part of the 30 Day Challenge is getting my friends and peers posting. Each day I had one or two compost comrades post anything compost related. This means I get to catch up with people I might not have spoken to since the last challenge. Some people are a little uncertain about posting but most composters jump at the chance to gab on about compost, especially their own piles or projects. But participants are encouraged to self promote and post tips, philosophies and opinions – the more controversial the better. What I love most about the audience participation is that it reinforces my contentions that anyone can compost, there is no one right way to do it and there are no failures.

The purpose of the challenge is very straightforward – create as much social media content about compost as you can, to raise awareness about compost. Why not try running a compost awareness campaign next May for International Composting Awareness Week? Or start a monthly Coffee & Compost gathering in your neighbourhood?