Compost Cultures is an intergenerational community project exploring food waste, composting and climate action through creative co-design.
Working alongside local residents, artists and community partners across Waltham Forest, we're developing new ways to connect people with nature, sustainability and each other.
Compost Cultures is a collaboration between Compost Collective and LABTwnty4, supported by the London Borough of Waltham Forest (culture and climate teams), and working with local growers and creative practitioners.
Compost Campaign
The project started in May 2026 with an engagement with LABTwnty4, a paid opportunity for young people to help us co-design a Positive Composting Campaign.
Over two months, the group learnt about compost systems, visited local growing/composting spaces, and researched food waste processes. They created poster designs and made a short podcast about why composting matters.
Developmental workshops also introduced ways to lower the environmental impact of digital practices, enhancing carbon literacy.
Activities Included
Research Skills Development: Interview prep, site-visit video documentation and expert interviewing, field journaling, compost sampling, character mapping.
Digital Skills Development: Weighing your digital carbon footprint, low-impact digital content creation, video editing, poster making, video campaign planning and video editing.
Design and Systems Thinking: Systems mapping, compost system mapping, relational mapping.
Podcast: The LABTwnty4 team interviewed local growers and composters in their neighbourhood to find out why composting is important, the impact of composting in our local food systems, and how people can get involved.
Watch their podcast here!
Compost Café
In June, we hosted a Compost Café at The Cotch in Walthamstow, a community co-design workshop bringing together local people from restaurants, food hubs and community gardens, local authority staff and the LABTwnty4 team - with catering provided by local zero waste restaurant, The Lacy Nook.
Together, we discussed food waste and composting in the neighbourhood, and imagined how a community composting hub could work - one that is collaborative, accessible, and genuinely useful to the people who live and work in the area. During this interactive workshop, participants mapped existing green spaces and composting sites across the borough. A total of 16 sites were mapped by community members, and 3 potential compost hub sites were identified.
Compost Hub
Following the Compost Café, Donna’s Corner was identified as the community garden where we could build the community composting pilot. The Compost Cultures team extended the existing garden composting system and are supporting Time to Grow and Right to Grow to set up a Ridan Food Composting system that they were able to purchase for Donna’s Corner.
On 19 September, we came together at Donna’s Corner community garden to celebrate the launch of its new community composting systems. Compost Cultures hosted a compositing workshop for the community members and neighbourhood folks who participated.
The afternoon brought together local residents, compost champions, Compost Cultures partners and those simply curious about composting to explore the new systems and share some food together - generously catered by zero waste restaurant The Lacy Nook.
These new composting systems mean food and garden waste can be composted locally and turned into a resource for Donna’s Corner, helping build healthy soil and grow free local food for Cathall Estate community.
Local Compost Champions will maintain the new systems and encourage other residents to help keep food waste hyperlocal to create nutrient-rich compost for the gardens. Compost Collective will continue to support Donna’s Corner with any composting queries that may arise at the hub.
Compost Map
A network of composting hubs - turning existing gardens and composting sites into a connected network of learning hubs across the area.
To help connect existing compost networks and identify gaps in provision, we are mapping composting sites across the Borough of Waltham Forest. Using an open-source and accessible map tool we are capturing details about the sites, such as what they do, what they can offer, and what they’re looking for.
Continuing the work…
Compost Cultures is a pilot project that explores how organisations such as ours can support and enable local communities to come together to collaborate around food, food waste management, and soil health through connecting and creating local composting sites.
Food is an ideal entry point to environmental literacy for young people, who are more likely to be disconnected from natural and food systems. The programme enhances compost literacy through practical and creative action that takes into account skills development for young people, as well as co-designing solutions with local communities to make sure they are relevant to the local context they’re situated in, creating opportunities for more connected and resilient communities to emerge.
This is just the beginning and we welcome more collaborations as well as funded opportunities to work with young people and local organisations within Waltham Forest and across other areas in London.
If you’re interested, please reach out to us at compostcultures@compostcollective.co or hey@compostcollective.co
Partners
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