Support Schemes

Community Grants Scheme: Hare Krishna's Food For Life Recycling Project

A strong sense of respect for the natural environment and gratitude for the land that provides us with food was the belief system behind the International Society for Krishna Consciousness' successful grant application in the 2006 Community Grants Scheme.

The society's proposal was to recommence composting at their organically farmed community garden in Bayswater using enclosed tumble compost bins. When they originally started their organic garden they set up a series of open compost heaps, which provided good quality compost, but tended to attract flies and emit bad odours. A new composting proposal was then developed to overcome these problems and to continue producing quality compost for their garden.

The grant enabled the society to purchase a total of ten compost tumblers (pictured) that were then filled with the vegetable scraps from their restaurant. With the advice from an expert, they also purchased a mulcher for pulping the vegetable scraps prior to adding them to the compost tumblers. This enabled them to turn vegetable scraps into garden-ready compost in just seven to ten days.

The quality compost produced from the new compost tumblers was used on their organic community garden. The benefits of using the compost was tri-fold! Composting reduced the amount of organic waste going to landfill; the fertility of the soil in the garden was improved; and the produce grown from the compost-improved garden was used in the society's vegetarian restaurant to provide healthy budget meals!

In the future, the society would like to invite local schools to visit their community garden in order to share their experiences and demonstrate a practical example of simple waste minimisation.

The Strategic Waste Initiatives Scheme (SWIS) is aimed at providing support and encouragement to business and industry, local government, community groups and individuals in tackling priority waste issues.

The Community Grants Scheme (CGS) is aimed at supporting local, community-scale projects that improve the management of waste in Western Australia.