Compost Club
A LOCAL SCRAP, USING SCRAPS, FOR THE PLANET
The first rule of the Compost Club is to have a positive impact in the world. The second rule is... alright, you get the idea. Like that film we’re referencing, there’s fighting involved in this story, just here the fighting is holistically good. Michael Kennard is fighting against climate change. What’s the weapon? Soil.
Michael’s interest in the magical stuff started at a young age. He often helped out in the garden with his grandad, sowing sunflowers and marvelling at their rapid growth. Michael became an electrician but in the back of his mind was always gardening. Eventually, he managed to get a little parcel of land not too far from his home. “It was really degraded land, which I kind of liked because I wanted to demonstrate that you can produce an abundance of really great food while improving the soil, as opposed to just taking from it”. The challenge then was taking this bad soil and making it good. But he found it difficult to find healthy compost. So, he decided to make his own, converting old food waste into compost. Very quickly, he found he was making more and more and saw the potential in the positive impact he could make for the world by making compost for others too. There was a growing demand of people wanting to get involved to recycle their food waste and process it into something reusable and revitalising. And so, the Compost Club was born and it went from strength to strength. As a community company, they take food waste from many houses around Brighton, usually collecting the buckets of waste on their bikes and repurposing it for compost – healthy, biodiverse compost. This compost, then returned to those who share their waste, can then be added to the soil in the ground and used to make good food, creating a positive cycle which is replicable in many neighbourhoods around the world. Michael oversees the Compost Club and its many projects alongside raising two children. “What we need”, Michael says, “is more children who are educated and active in nature and soil health.” There is hope in children and it isn’t just a third generation of Kennards who are inspired, it’s adults, too. “People are receptive. I’m finding you can speak to anybody very easily about climate change, and at the very least they’ll agree it’s a problem. They can tell their kids that too. It’s an exciting time. I’m hopeful there’s time for us to do something before we just all perish.”
You might hear perish and think doom and gloom. But conversations like this show that while drastic change is still needed, there is huge room to be hopeful and excited. Soil is providing solutions that can actually have a positive impact, both locally and beyond. It is people like Michael who are trying to get things going and encourage us to do the same too. Will you join the club too?
You can find the Compost Club at
www.compostclub.online
