Food Scrap Friday

For families at Camdenville Public School, Food Scrap Friday is a way to recycle food waste into soil-enriching compost. They simply bring their kitchen scraps to the Laura street school gate on Friday mornings, where volunteers collect them and take them to Camdenville Paddock Community Garden for composting. Each week as many as 40 school families are contributing.
Food Scrap Friday began in October 2016, and as of December 2018 we have collected and composted over 9000kg of kitchen waste - enriching our gardens, keeping food out of landfill, and preventing an estimated 17 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

In February 2019, Food Scrap Friday was featured on ABC Gardening Australia. Watch the story here.

Benefits

  • For families who want to compost but are unable to do so at home, we provide a simple and convenient way, by dropping off food scraps at the school gate once a week.
  • As well as reducing the amount of compostable waste in landfill, we are enriching our garden soil and closing the loop of food production / consumption / disposal.
  • We no longer buy soil or compost at Camdenville, and despite the recent drought, our soil is in the best condition it has been in in years.
  • We now have a great way to compost the waste we produce at the paddock (e.g. chook litter). ​​

Weighing and Measuring

We recognise the importance of measuring, recording and reporting the difference we're making. Each week we count the number of families contributing as well as the total amount collected - which enables us to track our progress over time. We've learned that the average school family is producing 3.8kg of compostable food waste each week.

We post photos and the latest statistics on Facebook and Instagram #FoodScrapFriday, and we frequently post updates in the school newsletter. 

A Model for School / Garden Partnerships

After two years, Food Scrap Friday has developed into a model that could be adopted by school / community garden partnerships elsewhere.

It's a simple, volunteer-based project that is creating new connections between our school and community garden, and generating multiple benefits for both. 

Thinking about doing #FoodScrapFriday at your school? Let us know! We'd love to help. Contact president@camdenvillepaddock.com

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Photos