Image available from pixabay, accessed on 18/10/2019.

Food, water, and air. Three things humans can’t live without (also, mum’s lasagne). However, one third of all food is thrown away (Source). In fact, if food waste were a country, all the emissions from rotting food would place it as the third biggest polluter globally. That’s just food alone, but there’s something you can do. Composting. The simple, humble, and satisfying way to put your food waste to good use.

Food today has higher food-millage, is not as fresh, and has less flavour and nutritional value. Composting gives you the tools to create your own nutrient rich soil / mulch, reduce your waste, and get outside. The process is quite simple. Composting requires four things, just four. Soil (with all its squirmy microorganisms), organic material / waste, water, and plenty of air. Almost anything can go in your compost. A good dollop of paper trimmings or grass will provide the carbon and nitrogen and some nice small chunks of your food waste. That’s all you need (and just a sprinkling of worms). You stop chucking your scraps into a bin and hoping someone else will deal with your waste, and you get a beautiful nutrient-rich mulch produced at the end.

Whether it be a community garden centre, eating with friends and family, or your own garden, growing and eating food brings people together, and there is something incredibly special about going from plant to table, scraps to compost, compost to plant, and then plant back to table.

For a step by step process on composting visit Gardening Australia at or planet natural research centre.

Composting facilitates happy lives and healthier selves. I believe it is said by none better than Sir Elton John, The Circle of Compost:

Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba Sithi uhm ingonyama!

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the Sun
There’s more to be seen than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done

Some say eat or be eaten
Some say live and let live
But all are agreed as they join the stampede
You should never take more than you give

In the circle of COMPOST
It’s the wheel of fortune
It’s the leap of faith
It’s the band of hope
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding

In the circle, the circle of COMPOST….