Master Composters “putting people in compost”

The new service is being run by the London Community Recycling Network, which has just secured funding for another year of its programmes.

London CRN’s Western Riverside and North London Composting Networks are now recruiting a team of Master Composters to work with householders in the project areas through telephone and email contact, home visits, local events and contributions to newsletters. The first “putting people into compost” training event is to be held on September 9.

The Master Composter scheme is part of two larger home composting projects the Network is running with the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) and the Western Riverside Waste Authority.

The NWLA project has been funded by the London Recycling Fund, with 58,971 allocated for 2004/05 and 60,475 for 2005/06. The Western Riverside project has been funded by the Western Riverside Environmental Fund (WREF) to the tune of 70,000 for the 15 months from July 1st this year.

As well as the Master Composter scheme, the two home composting projects include support for community composting groups through “basic business support and funding advice as well as developing a technical resource library”. And, there will also be some local authority support for partnerships between the voluntary and public sectors on home composting.

Building Partnerships
London CRN has also secured 82,998 funding from the London Recycling Fund for its Building Partnerships programme for the period up to July 2005. The programme aims to create partnerships between local authorities and the community sector and assist community groups in entering into service delivery agreements with London boroughs.

Neil Carrett, technical manager at London CRN, said: “Amazing progress has been made by community recyclers over the past two years. We now want to work with groups that are ready for the next level. This means improving financial sustainability and demonstrating a commitment to increasing the tonnage of waste diverted from landfill.”

The Building Partnerships programme has three strands – raising awareness of the community sector's potential in delivering local authority services, support for councils wishing to work with community groups and the development of four exemplar projects.

The exemplar projects aim to demonstrate the range of services that community groups can provide. One project in the Building Partnerships programme is the Croydon Appliance Recycling Centre (see letsrecycle.com story).

Sharing Resources
A third programme run by the network gained funding last month for 2004/05 – the 35,000 Sharing Resources programme, which provides London community groups with free training and consultancy service.

New funding for the programme's third year has come from the Association of London Government, London Remade, WREF, the SEED Programme and the European Social Fund.