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February 25, 2025
Last week a merry band of 16 community composting enthusiasts from 8 communities across South Hams took a research trip to visit the Loop Frome compost project in Somerset, with the hope of applying what we learnt there to new community projects in South Hams.
Hosted by Loop project founder and Director Peter MacFadyen, and Frome Town Council, the aim of the day was to find out how this pioneering social enterprise is converting leftover food from businesses, the health centre and households, into a valuable resource of high-quality compost for the community.
A key part of the trip was visiting 3 sites in the town. First, we went to Compost Central in the town’s main park where food leftovers from 10 local businesses is processed. Here 3 big Ridan hot composters convert food into semi-composted material. After several weeks it is moved into a series of maturation bins (large aerated wooden boxes) where the end-product is a sweet-smelling compost that tests have shown is bursting with microorganisms, beneficial for soil health. This is then given back to the participating businesses for free and sold to others in the community, thereby funding the staff and project costs.
Our lunchtime stop was the Frome Medical Centre where the staff convert their leftovers from kitchens and café into compost for the staff wellbeing garden. The project is one of many in the Green and Healthy Frome project and participants were really inspired by seeing such a successful composting initiative in this unusual context.
Our final visit was to Broadway Community Garden where we heard from enthusiastic volunteer Katie, how local householders are converting their food leftovers using a tumbling Jora bin into compost for the garden.
People who took part in the day really valued the opportunity to meet others running or developing composting projects and described how they were left with new ideas and enthusiasm.
Sustainable South Hams compost mentors Mel and Ben have been working with community and street representatives in various parts of South Hams. If you would like to set up a composting project in your street or community then please get in touch at mel@sussh.org or ben@sussh.org and we can offer free advice to get you started.
Event dates for your diary include;
· School Soil Food Web CPD day – Ivybridge, Fri 7th March
· Home Composting Masterclass – South Brent, Sat 15th March
· Community Composting Gathering & Masterclass – South Brent, weekend 26th/27th April