To mark the beginning of Compost Week 2021 (15th-21st March), the Guild, the University's Environmental Services and the Birmingham University Conservation Volunteers are launching a campaign to encourage students and staff to save their food waste and use the new compost facilities at the community garden on the Green Heart.
This is an exciting project that has been in the pipeline for many months and we hope that as everyone begins the return to campus, this will provide a much needed place to sustainably dispose of food waste.
The garden is located by the North Gate on campus, opposite the Alan Walters Building
The Grow with Joe community garden is run by students from the Conservation Volunteers society, and has been in development since winning the Birmingham Project student programme in 2017. Our work at the garden is focused to encourage students, staff and members of the community to become interested in local food production.
The garden is located by the North Gate on campus, opposite the Alan Walters Building (please see the map for how to find the compost bins).
As part of our drive to become more sustainable, and also to satisfy our need for high quality compost, we have developed a Community Composting Initiative. This will provide a place for staff and students to deposit their organic food waste such as vegetable peelings, egg shells and biodegradable tea bags. Our clean and efficient composting system will then produce a high quality growing medium for us to cultivate organic produce.
The objectives of this project are:
- To reduce waste from students and staff
- Teach members of our community about organic food production and its benefits
- Production of a high quality, fertile compost for food production at Grow with Joe
- To make the Grow with Joe project more self-sustaining and less reliant on external inputs
The new insulated compost bins that have been installed for the launch will provide a clean receiver station for the drop off of food waste.
This will then be allowed to rot down before it is turned and moved to open air bins for further decomposition. The ongoing maintenance of the project will be managed by student and staff volunteers from the Conservation Volunteers society. Proper use of the bins will be supervised by the society committee position ‘Head Gardener’.
To learn more about community composting, or to get involved in the garden project, please don’t hesitate to contact us at:
BUCV@guild.bham.ac.uk
m.griffin@guild.bham.ac.uk.