Food composting: Our workshop experience — Project TrashBusters
We are Project TrashBusters, a group of students passionate about spreading awareness to reduce waste in Singapore. As part of our initiatives, we were keen to learn more about food composting to teach the community, encouraging them to adopt the habit of composting and reduce food waste.
Being complete novices in food composting, you can imagine the delight we felt when we were offered the opportunity to attend a food scrap composting workshop by Food Citizen. With an open mind and a desire to learn, we embarked on our composting journey.
Community Activity
Stepping into the workshop venue, we were buzzing with excitement to learn yet nervous at the same time, as this was a completely novel experience for us. However, thanks to the warm welcome from Ms Katherine, our host, we immediately felt much more at ease and ready to learn more about composting.
We started with our first-ever task; cutting up vegetable scraps, fruit peels, and garden trimmings into smaller pieces. These scraps would provide the ‘nitrogen’ needed to feed helpful microorganisms in the compost and be large enough to create air spaces within a compost heap. Ms Cuifen, our workshop facilitator, initiated a round of self-introductions and we chatted with one another about composting.
One of our favourite aspects of this workshop was the cosy and friendly atmosphere, creating an environment for having thorough discussions about composting. Instead of a typical workshop where the participants only listened to the facilitator, in this workshop, everyone felt comfortable sharing their experiences and asking helpful questions.
This workshop highlighted the fact that composting is not only a great way to recycle our food waste. It is also a community activity, something that can create strong bonds between people with the same passion.
What exactly is composting?
After filling a few bowls with chopped food up to the brim, we sat in a circle facing the workshop facilitator, Ms Cuifen, for an introduction to composting. Throughout her sharing, our initial stereotypes and conceptions of composting were challenged quite a bit.
A common misconception of compost that we had was that compost had a pungent smell and that it was equivalent to fertiliser.
However, after her explanation, we learned that aerobic composting microbes do not emit a foul smell, unlike the anaerobic microbes that can also decompose food. Compost is also a much better alternative to fertiliser. It introduces different organic matter, nutrients, and helpful microorganisms to the soil, allowing the plants to get help from aerobic microorganisms in accessing nutrients locked up in soil and organic matter. Fertiliser, especially synthetic ones, provide only the nutrients that humans think the plant needs.
Ms Cuifen and our fellow workshop participants also shared their experience composting in Singapore as well as other countries. Contrary to our beliefs, Singapore does not have many existing support systems in place to encourage composting. Despite the increasing recognition that compost contributes towards Singapore’s zero waste goals, people are lax about participating in composting. This may be due to stigmas people, including park managers and government workers, continue to hold against compost. They may not fully understand the process of composting and this can lead to misconceptions, which makes it harder for people in the community to start and continue composting.
How to compost?
Ms Cuifen introduced us to the aerobic thermal composting method. Much like a Kek Lapis, a compost heap consists of alternating layers of organic material that can be categorised as ‘nitrogen’ or ‘carbon’ — the ‘nitrogen’ is contributed from the food scraps as well as garden trimmings, and ‘carbon’ comes from wood shavings, twigs, dried leaves and more.
Finally, it was time for the hands-on portion of the workshop. We went to the garden to start our own composting pile with the materials provided, to get a feel for composting and learn some practical techniques. Working with the other workshop participants, we successfully created a small compost pile. Looking at it, we felt satisfied and happy that we had completed a small compost pile for the first time.
Despite making mistakes along the way, the hands-on composting activity has enhanced our learning very much. We learned much from one another and our mistakes, all while also receiving helpful feedback from Ms Cuifen.
By the end of the workshop, we were delighted to know that we had become much more experienced and were able to create and care for our very own compost piles.
We appreciate Ms Cuifen and Food Citizen for helping us in our food scrap composting journey and giving us the necessary skills to spread what we have learned to other passionate members of the community. We were able to gain more confidence in starting our compost pile independently and teach others how to do it as well.
Throughout the workshop, the facilitator and host were very helpful and stepped up to help us at every turn. They helped clear common misconceptions about composting and taught us techniques only known by those experienced in composting, making the workshop a very fruitful one.
All in all, food scrap composting is definitely one of the crucial first steps towards achieving a sustainable Singapore while also involving the community simultaneously. All it takes is a compost container or an area in your garden to start a compost heap and a strong attitude and dedication paired with it. As long as we all work toward sustainability through composting, each and everyone contributing what they can, the Earth's ecosystem will benefit greatly.
About the Writer
Project TrashBusters (Instagram)
Project TrashBusters is a team of Secondary 3 students from CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ School in Singapore. Trash Busters is their VIA (Values-In-Action) project, which promotes active and intentional learning through intentional learning, growing a sense of responsibility, and providing meaningful service to the community. Through their project, the students raise awareness of different types of waste, specifically food waste, textile waste, and e-waste. In reaching out to Food Citizen, the students wanted to learn more about composting so that they could conduct their VIA workshops for seniors at community centres.
