Organisation Background:

An eco-cohousing community with 41 homes, 65 adults and 15 children. Private homes with shared facilities. The community is a limited company.

Current status of composting project:

The community has composted for a while, initially with open bays, however it was becoming hard work for more elderly community members to maintain and t was attracting pests. Therefore, in 2021 the community purchased and transferred to an in-vessel system.

Relevance to the Highlands:

Using a Ridan in-vessel composting system which requires no electricity, so suitable for remote regions. There is not a council food waste collection service.
Type of composting solution: Ridan medium sized in-vessel composter with two maturation bins. The system is just about at capacity. The system doesn’t take food waste from all homes as some have other individual recycling routes via allotments or vermicomposting setups. Its estimated that approximately 30 homes are feeding food waste to the system.

How the staff, volunteers and community work together:

All volunteer members of the community.

Scale:

Approximately30 households

Input material:

Equal quantities of food waste and wood (sawdust). Sawdust is bought in bulk bags (£80 per year) as they couldn’t find a reliable source of waste wood/sawdust. No teabags, compostable bags or meat is allowed in the system.

End use:

Community growing space is given priority for the compost produced. Additional material is made openly available to the community after this.

Partners/ collaborators:

n/a

Price (possibly to include funding and/ or operational costs and income):

Ridan and two maturation bins (approx. £5K)

How the system works in practice:

There is a rota for seven community members to collect caddies and to feed the composter, make checks and turn the composter. There are five large caddies use for the food waste deposited with two emptied approximately twice a week to trickle feed the composter. Material out of the Ridan composter is transferred to one of the maturation bins. The bin is filled up over a three-month period whilst the other is emptied (i.e. maturation up to three months).

Main motivator:

The community is an eco-community interested in sharing facilities/resources

Number of years the scheme has been running for:

In-vessel composting system established in March 2021