Turning Waste into Wonder: Composting with Soil Social
Minimising waste and maximising our resources are two roads to the same destination. While most waste reduction conversations focus on avoiding waste, making the most of our resources is a complementary solution to helping Singapore meet its green goals much sooner.
One way to make the most of a resource is composting. Soil Social, an SG Eco Fund-supported startup, is passionate about using composting to show people that their food scraps have more value than they think.
The Soil Social story
Food waste is one of the biggest waste streams in Singapore. It accounted for 11% of the total waste generated last year, with the amount of food waste generated over the last 10 years growing by around 20%.
Soil Social — a two woman team — found themselves extremely unnerved by this statistic and the amount of food waste Singaporeans generate. The duo wanted to explore ways to retain the nutrients in the system, and help to reduce the amount of waste sent to the landfill. Composting, when done correctly, does exactly that by becoming a highly nutritious plant food — feeding back into the ecosystem.
This was especially appealing to Soil Social co-founder Jayden, who combined her interest in waste upcycling with regenerative farming solutions. Together with Soil Social’s other co-founder, Ee Peng, who has a background in organic farming and agriculture, the two embarked on a journey to advocate for the benefits of composting and educate people on how to create quality compost.
What composting is, and what it isn’t
How does compost work, and how does one do it properly?
To start off, one needs a compost bin where food waste can be left to decompose over a period of time. Raw fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea leaves and even egg shells can be added to your compost bin and mixed with carbon materials such as wood chips and dried leaves.
When successfully broken down and properly ventilated over two months, the result is a highly nutritious compost that enriches soil and promotes healthier plant growth.
Soil Social shares that there are plenty of misconceptions about this process, which puts people off composting so A common misconception is that composting is smelly and attracts pests due to the food decomposing. However, when done right, composting can actually be done in a clean and organised manner.
An important aspect of Soil Social’s outreach is therefore to teach and also provide the right tools for composting to ensure that individuals are better equipped, so that it’s done correctly and efficiently.
Waste to Wonder: where composting dreams take flight
While composting is not entirely foreign to Singaporean greenies, Soil Social hopes to popularise it by highlighting how easy and fun it is, and by leveraging on the spirit of community.
To give people a chance to try out composting, their ‘Waste to Wonder’ pilot campaign at Jurong Spring CC features a Food Waste Exchange, where residents get quality compost in exchange for compostable food scraps of up to 3kg.
The other half of their pilot campaign involves running composting workshops for the residents of Jurong Spring. During the workshop, each participant is given a composting bin to start their own composting journey at home, thanks to the support of the SG Eco Fund. Soil Social also hopes to bring more people together by expanding their capacity to host more gardening and composting workshops in the future.
Soil Social’s mission is simple: to eradicate the stereotypes and misconceptions that come with composting, and thus promote an alternative method of reusing and minimising waste. They hope that decentralised composting will become more common, and for more to be open to creating their own communal composts.
Curious about composting, or want to bring Waste to Wonder to your neighbourhood? Reach out to the friendly Soil Social team!
Like compost, the SG Eco Fund is here to nourish your eco ideas. Visit www.mse.gov.sg/sgecofund to learn more about the funding process, and watch your ideas sprout!
#SGEcoFund #SGGreenPlan
