Rewarding sustainability

By Spencer Fowler Steen

South Melbourne Primary School in Southbank is set to purchase six solar composters from the City of Port Phillip after winning a Nude Food grant last month.

The six green cone solar composters will allow the school to process all of its organic waste on site instead of transporting it to South Melbourne Market each week.

The grant follows the nation-wide Nude Food Day competition where over 1000 schools participated in various challenges aiming to encourage sustainability.

Kelly Brogan, a parent at the school, said the $480 grant would cover the six solar composters which were also subsidised by the City of Port Phillip as part of its composting program.

“They’ll allow us to process waste without having to do anything,” she said.

“It eliminates the ‘yuck factor’ by decomposing waste straight into the garden bed without the need for worms.”

Many children at the school live in high-rise apartments where opportunities to have a garden are limited, but the solar composters will help the school’s garden thrive.

Ms Brogan said they had inherited the existing gardens when the school was built and many parents at the school would love to take over some of these spaces to create “working gardens.”

“We have outdoor terraces on the north of our building, and once we have more funding, we’d love to have vegetable beds on those terraces,” she said.

“We’ll be working towards that by applying for grants next year and we would love anyone who could help with our gardens to get in contact.”

Ms Brogan said the new solar composters would be installed in November.