Australia set to launch with new Rocket Composter

The Rocket Composter, from UK waste-to-energy solutions provider Tidy Planet, is ready to be used at a community farm in Fish Creek , Victoria.

Image: Rocket Composter (sourced from Eco Gaurdians).

The farm will be set to divert between 200-300kg of food and green waste from landfill using the new composter.

The global partnership between the farm and UK company will be facilitated by Australian distributor Eco Gaurdians, who will oversee the A900 In-Vessel Composter (IVC) shipped over 17,000 km. It will then be installed on the Rail Trail near Buckley Park Community Farm.

Surrounding residences will be the source of food and green wastes, to be collected from those homes nearby and fed into the Rocket Composter, along with a dry source of woodchip. The process will then create a nutrient-ricj compost ready to be used in onsite gardens.

“This is a completely new project for the farm and, as we’re a community initiative, it was crucial that the environmental solution we invested in would allow for a completely closed-loop model” said farm volunteer Marg Watson.

“We’ve been operating for over three years now, and our ethos has always been that a community should be able to grow enough food to feed all those who live in it. With the help of the Rocket, we’ll be able to produce high quality compost for use on our cultivation plots.

“We’ve been strongly supported by the wider community in bringing this project to fruition, and we’re looking forward to what the future holds” she continued.

Soft environmental weeds from both private and public land will comprise the green waste component, collected by local community groups and dried onsite, ready for use as the main source of carbon content.

Huw Crampton, Tidy Planet Sales Manager says “This represents our first ever composting project in Australia and we’re really excited about taking out technology to the other side of the world.

“The food waste management debate has been hotting up in Australia for a while – ever since the government launched the National Food Waste Strategy in 2017 – and composting can provide an effective way to reduce landfill and carbon emissions at the same time”.