Jess Miller’s compost facts
Mike Simonds emptying a road garden compost bin in Chippendale
Jess Miller is an ideas person who gets local food, composting and gardening going on the ground, the internet and in communities. In particular, Jess is the founder of the Grow it Local project. Here are some facts from an email Jess wrote this week to Monica Barone, General Manager of Sydney City Council:
“So when we surveyed participants in 2012, and again just last month at the conclusion of the City of Sydney supported advertising campaign and TEDxSydney (zero waste!) event this is what we found out:
- People who garden are 85% more likely to compost. 84.3% of people who participated in the first Grow It Local made their own compost
- People who garden are overwhelmingly female and aged 36-45, followed closely by the 45+ age group, in the City of Sydney the 25-36 year olds are rapidly becoming most engaged
- People grow their own food for environmental, heath reason and fun – in that order
- 76% of the 998 gardens registered via the Grow It Local website are in peoples’ backyards and are an average of 2-3 metres squared
- Despite our having a strong online presence, people are desperate to connect to each other in real life to fell a part of community and to learn new things
- People are desperate to have an excuse to meet and learn from other people growing in their area – particularly older folks and people from different cultural backgrounds (they all seriously want to meet the old Greek guy from down the road and raid his backyard grove)
So from this qualitative research, as a person that runs community engagement projects like this, my key insights are:
1. Compost bins are good for gardens and good for people
2. When placed on nature strips (and well-maintained as they have been in Chippendale) they give people a visible and genuine excuse to talk to each other – especially younger people an excuse to ask older people for gardening advice
2. People who garden in the Sydney do so in very small spaces, and despite wanting to compost they don’t have room – so kerbside composting helps them
And though I am so very proud of the City of Sydney and honestly, would not have stuck around for as long as I have if it weren’t for the excellent leadership of the Lord Mayor and you as CEO Monica Barone, Mayor Bloomberg is basically ‘killin it’ on the compost front www.nytimes.com… and personally I am so sick of all of my ‘cool’ Sydney come NYC friends telling me all about their “awesome” environmental programmes.
Jess.”
Good to see facts mixed with passion – go Jess, and thanks,
Michael
Useful facts and figures Michael. I started to think of our Organic Gardening and ForestGgardening courses for Randwick City Council as I was reading Jess’:
Our experience related to Jess’ points…
1. No information.
2. Our experience accords with Jess’ point two regarding age profile, though we have been predominately attracting women in their twenties.
3. Reasons for food growing in the Eastern suburbs appear more diverse than Jess’ findings. Health I would put before environment. Acquiring skills is well up there at the front.
4. Most of our course attendees are home gardeners, with the remainders community gardeners or people planning to garden in future.
5. Attending our six session courses fulfils the social need Jess refers to. Students have sometimes continued to meet after the end of the courses.
6. We have started to attract people of NESB.
The community compost bins in the Barrett house footpath garden continue to be used, mainly by people living in the nearby apartments. Fiona replaced the Aerobin with Geddye bins on account of the cockroach infestation of the Aerobins. These work better.
The footpath garden has proven a point of contact with people walking by.
Most home gardeners in Randwick manage small spaces as in accord with Jess’ findings. Their attendance at the Forest Gardening course signifies they want to plant fruit trees as ell as vegetables. Training in making container gardens is important.
Having worked with City of Sydney as community gardens/landcare coordinator, I too enjoyed the support of Clover and Monica Barone and that of some other staffers. This must be tempered with both supportive and regressive staff and with old approaches to organisational structure and community engagement. Planning, too (when I was there)… for example the City’s Street Tree Master Plan makes no allowance for community plantings of fruit or nut trees on footpaths. People removing trees from their property cannot count fruit species as their replacement when they receive the City’s go-ahead for removal and replacement The City will not allow street tree pruning for solar access to PV panels and solar water heaters — the City does not recognise solar rights. These things dent the City’s reputation as a progressive local government and need reform.
There is also no culture of entrepreneurialism within the City staff. To regard the role of community gardening coordinator as that of a civic entrepreneur (as social entrepreneur trainer Ernosto Sirrolli said the role should be) that makes it possible for communities to take their own initiatives on public land was somewhat alien.