Sustainability & Agriculture

Bokashi Compost System

In 2021, we have been focusing on reducing the amount of rubbish that goes into landfill. This is in line with the College’s strategic plan to reduce landfill accumulation and try to achieve a benchmark of 0.3 cubic metres per student/per year as set by Sustainability Victoria. One initiative that the Environment team introduced to try and reach this target was to implement classroom compost bins at Year levels from Prep to Year 9.

Thanks to work done by Mr Glenn Hudson (Agricultural Resource Manager), the school was able to compost all food scraps due to the implementation of the Bokashi (anaerobic) compost system. The bokashi fermentation process is a lot faster than normal composting methods due to the addition of effective microbes. These beneficial microbes work to ferment organic waste very quickly. The whole process from start to finish can take a matter of just four weeks (refer to figure 1).

Figure 1. Compost using the Bokashi Method

The Environment team is now looking at expanding the bins to include the senior school, Years 10-12. Another initiative that is being investigated is to also compost paper towels.

Mr Dwayne Ganci

Sustainability Coordinator