Healthy, nutritious, delicious food starts with the soil. Food Plymouth’s Generous Earth project supports this reality as a community composting initiative creating a network of local community composters in Plymouth. We are enriching and conditioning soils by turning our food waste and green waste into beautiful compost! This what Generous Earth is all about: showcasing and encouraging composting on different scales, so everyone can do it.
Generous Earth involves:
- Making lots of top quality compost!
- Supporting people and community organisations to produce their own peat-free compost full of life and nutrients
- Educating and mentoring community members to compost in community settings and at home
- Transforming ‘waste’ into a valuable resource
- Working with communities and businesses to find better solutions to make the best use of food ‘waste’ and green ‘waste’
- Feeding our soils to grow more healthy delicious local food in the city of Plymouth
- Encouraging resourcefulness, innovation and abundance thinking
- Connecting people, communities and green spaces
Generous Earth is a community composting project based in Plymouth. Set up in 2019 with the welcome support of local food partnership Food Plymouth and forming part of the Plymouth Green Minds legacy, we have been supporting the adoption of different composting methods including Hotbins, Bokashi composting and more traditional methods. Our pilot project was Snapdragons in Stonehouse with our Fertile Edges composting project during the COVID-19 pandemic (read more here) and we have also supported composting initiatives in Blockhouse Park, Stoke.
In March 2024, with the help of our generous supporters, we raised over £14,000 in a Crowdfunder campaign to purchase three pre-loved Ridan food waste composting systems! One of these will be at Zoo Field in Central Park, another will go to Devonport Park and the third will be set up at the Kintsugi Community Garden project at the Knowle Avenue allotments in Keyham. Generous Earth is enjoying the support of local communities of composting enthusiasts to make this happen!
A Generous Earth learning visit to see see Ridans in action in August 2023.
Each Ridan system is capable of processing up to 400 litres (200kg) of food waste per week. The Ridan Pro 400s are made in North Devon.
“The Easy Gear technology makes using the Ridan Pro 400 so easy to use – turn the handle and the compost is moved slowly through the system. The insulating cover keeps the heat in to sterilize the food waste and increase the speed of composting. The stainless steel frame and robust weather-proof structure enables the Ridan Pro 400 to be positioned anywhere and to last a lifetime.”
Credit: Ridan
“The compost that emerges from a Ridan composter will have completed the hot thermophilic stage of composting, but in order to become a good growing medium it must be matured for a further 2 or 3 months before use. For the maturation process we have maturation bins. The Ridan 900 Maturation Box is a robust 970 litre compost bin with steel base constructed from tough insulated plastic. It has an easy-open secure lid on top and compost removal hatches at the bottom. Complete with a steel base and metal sides to keep pests (such as rodents) at bay, it is simple to assemble and ideally suited to maturing the compost after it has been through the Ridan. It is approximately 1m x 1m x 1m.”
Generous Earth has purchased two maturation bins for each Ridan and, as part of the re-homing deal, we also obtained an 8’ x 10’ metal storage shed, miscellaneous composting tools, rainwater collecting equipment and a special container to store water which we are installing at our Zoo Field site in Central Park.
We are in the process of establishing two local composting groups in Devonport and Keyham, who will co-create a design to enable these projects to thrive using permaculture design. The Generous Earth team has been working with partners to find the best locations for the equipment and will train community volunteers to transform ‘waste’ into black gold!
We have a public Facebook page for keeping up to date with our progress and a private Facebook group for keen composters to share information, ask questions and support each other:
Generous Earth Community Composting Facebook Page
Third Thursdays of the Month are the volunteer days at Zoo Field in Central Park. Free events, 11 am to 3pm. Come and join us for as long as you want.
To sign up to our email list please contact generousearthcomposting@gmail.com
So, please stay in touch and do whatever you can to help bring this about.
Tess Wilmot, Hayley Rogers, Jess Duffy and the Generous Earth team
Food Plymouth Generous Earth Project