By Carly Espinosa, Business Development Manager | Better Packaging Co.

It's Composting Awareness Week!

3-9 May 2020

I was sustainably minded, an avid recycler, a plastic avoider, a conscious shopper. And a composting wannabe. But I thought composting was for people with backyards and gardens, not young singles in city apartments.

After excitedly taking advantage of the RedCycle soft plastics recycling schemes at Coles and Woollies, I noticed my bin was predominately full of food scraps, and it was getting smelly. I wanted to compost, but my inner dialogue gave quite the protest; How can I have a compost in such a tiny apartment? I don’t have a garden, where will the food scraps go? Won’t the compost attract cockroaches and pests? Won’t it smell? My place is so small I thought I wouldn’t even have space for a compost bucket in my kitchen.

The arguments against were strong. The thought of going to Bunnings and looking at worm farms felt totally inappropriate and something to be saved for my vege-filled, backyard future. But I just couldn’t let go of the feeling that there had to be a way … I got out my measuring tape and spent hours online until I found the smallest and simplest home composting bucket called the Urban Composter. It would fit under my sink… JUST!

I found some local ShareWaste ‘hosts’ in my community who wanted my food scraps for their compost. My favourite host, Hassan, is a lovely man with a kind face and a beautiful garden which overflows onto the footpath.

He leaves a plastic tub with a lid on his balcony so ShareWaste ‘donors’ can drop off their scraps at their convenience, even if he is not home. It is a special kind of feeling knowing that I am contributing to fertilising this very garden, that as two strangers together we have unlocked so much value in the waste that I had been throwing into landfill for years.

And just like that, I became a composter. My kitchen bin is now barely in use, it doesn’t fill up and doesn’t need to be taken out because it doesn’t smell. Even better, because so little goes into it now, I have an increased awareness of what I am actually sending to landfill, and am better able to make choices to reduce this as much as possible.

Keen to get started?

Visit our friends at Compost Revolution [Australians only] for $10 off* shipping and their already super-low, council-subsidised prices on composting equipment.

*Min spend applies.