Waste Policy

Amazing results of “The Power of Compost” competition

Published

21 Dec 2015

Written by

Joan Marc Simon

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Schools, groups of friends, visionary individuals,entrepreneurs, professionals and organisations all submitted their videos for the “The Power of Compost” competition. We wanted to hear your composting stories, and learn more about the inspirational ways that you and your communities are taking action to reduce organic waste and we got plenty of them.

Thank you to all of those who participated 🙂

Winner of the Community Solutions Award

Jesuïtes Gràcia- Kostka School in Barcelona, for involving the community of children, parents and schools in an cross-disciplinary and intergenerational experience around the importance of closing natural cycles.

Winner of the Creative Composter Award

Biomeiler – for showing a creative, low-tech, communty based solution to recover the heat of a composting process.

Winner of the Compost Education Award

András Guti – for explaining in a simple but illuminating way the benefits of composting and how we all can and should do it.

We received many inspiring videos but the jury composed of Dr Stefanie Siebert, Director of the European Compost Network, Eleen Murphy, coordinator of the Organic Stream and Joan Marc Simon, director of Zero Waste Europe could only select three winners.

However we particularly would like to mention the great work of:

the Birmingham Student Housing Co-operative

The “Vladimir Nazor” Primary School:

The School of Parede in Portugal:

And of the Cooperative HORT in Italy:

We also got some great videos which were not eligible for the competition but some of which we would like to mention because they are a very cool way to promote compost:

Such as the “organic RAP group” PANG from Belgium:

Or the Wertvolle Kompost from Arge Kompost & Biogas Österreich

Why a contest to promote the many benefits of compost?

Compost is an incredibly powerful tool in the zero waste tool box. Organic waste is often one of the most challenging waste streams in urban areas, as it’s usually the largest waste stream of household waste and the most problematic in environmental terms. With separation at source and proper treatment through composting however, it can be an amazing opportunity to help create a genuinely circular economy. Composting organic waste can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and avoid hazardous disposal systems such as landfilling and incineration. As a natural soil improver, it replaces the need for chemical-based fertilisers (contributors to climate change), and it has amazing rejuvenating qualities for soil, increasing the capacity of the land to act as a ‘carbon sink’ and reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

Across Europe millions of people are involved in composting, both on an individual level and as part of neighbourhood or community schemes. These actions are preventing vast amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, and providing vital nutrients for soils.

This has been a great experience and we thank again all participants for showing how doing the right thing is good for the people and for the planet!

EU FlagThe Power of Compost competition was able to take place thanks to funding from the Life Instrument of the European Union. The sole responsibility for the content of the videos lies with Zero Waste Europe. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the funder mentioned above. The funder cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

What a great competition we had this year!”