Home and community composting refers to the composting of domestic organic waste from kitchens and gardens by households or in a small community composting facility respectively. Home and community composting avoids the economic costs and environmental burdens associated with organic waste collection. The home and community composting is usually applied when other biowaste management options are less appropriate based on the followed local waste management strategy and/or findings of LCA studies on the optimal waste management options of the administered territory.
A major advantage of this practice especially in regions with low organic waste recycling rates, is that it can generate "buy-in" from citizens who are otherwise less likely to separate organic waste, thus significantly decreasing residual waste volumes and increasing overall recycling rates.
The implementation of home and community composting practice needs to take into account the following elements:
- Systematically deploy and promote home and community composting, keeping track of the number of residents involved, registering where composting equipment is installed and operated.
- Organise initial awareness raising campaigns through graphic material, public meetings, waste advisers etc. informing and training residents about home and community composting, its benefits, is correct operation, which biowaste is suitable etc.
- Regularly update and train residents on the correct operation of home and community composting
- Regularly monitoring home and community composting sites. A number of representative sites can be inspected every year to check the correct operation of composting and ensure its environmental benefits.
The success of home and community composting as an environmental management strategy depends highly on the management of the waste separation and composting process by citizens who must be first engaged to motivate them to separate organic waste, and then trained to correctly manage the composting process. Additional effort may be needed to organise home and community composting in urban areas.