Subsidized community home composting Everybody compost!

Today I am going to talk to you about an interesting initiative that has been taking place, often subsidized by local councils, in some Spanish homes for a few years now: home and community composting.

Decentralized home composting

More than 15 years ago the «Friends of the Earth « association started a campaign to promote decentralized home composting.

Decentralized composting is one where the compost production points (homes, orchards, private and community gardens…) and the points where it is used (public gardens, orchards, urban trees…) are close to each other.

In this way, the population has a stronger motivation to carry out this activity of home composting (because they see more closely where their compost is used) and also, by reducing distances, the costs of transporting this fertilizer are also reduced.

The association «Friends of the Earth» began, little by little, to get the involvement of municipalities, associations and individuals who saw composting as a very interesting and useful ecological technique to take advantage of waste and take care of the environment…

subsidized composting

Recycling and reuse of waste are some of the principles of Organic Farming because they are very beneficial for the Environment and the sustainability of resources.

If households compost, many residues such as lawn debris, leaf litter or food scraps that were destined to be wasted in landfills, become USEFUL MATERIALS TO FERTILIZE PARKS, GARDENS, PRIVATE AND COMMUNITY ORCHARDS OR TREES IN TOWNS AND CITIES.

There is no doubt that citizens and associations that participate in this type of urban composting initiatives benefit, as part of society, from this improvement of the environment. But, in addition, the public institutions that subsidize these projects provide them with training on the process (manuals, courses…) and tools to do it: composters, garden shredders, tools for turning the compost… Also in some municipalities there are other types of benefits for the participants in domestic composting initiatives, such as the reduction of the «garbage collection» fee applied to the residents of Soto del Real (Madrid).

Examples of subsidized home and community composting

The first domestic composting project with public support began in the municipality of Calviá (Majorca). At first, 100 neighbors signed up to participate and now there are more than 400 who carry out this type of domestic composting in favor of recycling and environmental conservation.

This initiative served as an example for other municipalities, which also began to do home composting. Such as the Rivas-Vaciamadrid City Council, which also started a domestic composting and vermicomposting project in 2002 where around 100 households began to participate and which, in just one year, expanded to more than 350.

Many other Spanish towns and cities have been joining this subsidized composting initiative. In Formentera and Ibiza, for example, there are more than 500 homes that compost thanks to the help of local and regional administrations.

Composting in the Community of Madrid

Also in the Community of Madrid there have been several domestic and community composting projects, such as the one in the neighborhoods of Barajas and San Blas, with more than 100 participants, or the one in San Sebastián de los Reyes, with more than 450 participants who compost and vermicompost.

In 2004, the Ministry of Agriculture initiated the Domestic Composting Implementation Program within the National Urban Waste Plan. They began by composting more than 50 families from the Madrid municipality of Galapagar, and later other municipalities from Ourense and La Coruña, Seville, Navarra… joined.

A few months ago the Madrid City Council started the » Madrid Agrocomposta « initiative, a project involving more than 200 families who recycle the food scraps and organic matter they generate in their homes to make compost. They deposit the waste in certain «collection nodes» and then the waste is collected in several agrocomposters in Madrid where the compost is produced.

Composting in other communities

Other domestic composting initiatives are those that are being carried out in many Galician towns and cities thanks to the collaboration of the Diputación de Galicia and SOGAMA, the Galician Society for the Environment.

There is also a domestic composting campaign in Asturias managed by the Company for the Management of Solid Waste in Asturias (COGERSA).

These are just some of the composting initiatives promoted in Spain by the City Councils. I hope that if you know more projects like this, you will tell us in the comments. And for those of you who haven’t composted yet, I hope that knowing all the experiences will help you start reusing waste!