Celebrating Bristol’s Makers, Growers, and Changemakers: The Community Behind Generation Soil

Bristol has always been a city of makers, doers, and dreamers. From artists and educators to brewers and growers, our city thrives on creativity and collaboration.

At Generation Soil, we’re proud to be part of this movement, working with local craftspeople, small businesses, educators, and organisations who are helping us regenerate Bristol from the ground up. Every patch, workshop, and compost bucket tells a story of community, creativity, and care for the planet.

This is our way of saying thank you to the incredible people who make what we do possible.

Celebrating Bristol’s Sustainable Craftspeople

Our shop isn’t just about compost, it’s about celebrating local craftsmanship and the people who bring creativity into regeneration. Every product we sell has a story, and every story is rooted in Bristol.

Handmade Mushrooms by Connor

Rubbish Ideas Co-Founder and CEO, Connor’s handcrafted mushrooms capture the magic of fungi, nature’s recyclers. Each mushroom celebrates the hidden networks of mycorrhizal fungi that help connect and sustain life in the soil.

Made by hand in Bristol, these sculptures are a reminder that beauty and regeneration often start underground. You can find them in the Generation Soil Shop, where art meets ecology.

Crochet Worms by Sofie

Sofie’s adorable crochet worms have become icons of the Generation Soil community.

Handmade from organic cotton and filled with love, they represent the unsung heroes of composting, worms! These tiny creatures quietly transform waste into life. Sofie’s creations bring personality and playfulness to sustainability, inspiring kids and adults alike to care for the soil beneath their feet.

Soil-Inspired Art by Theo Adams

Bristol artist Theo Adams has created a stunning series of hand-printed artworks inspired by soil textures, microbes, and the rhythm of regeneration.

Printed on recycled materials, Theo’s pieces embody the ethos of our work: celebrating what’s beneath the surface. His artwork helps people see soil as more than dirt, as a living, breathing system that sustains us all.

Rebel Patch x Generation Soil Collaboration

Our partnership with Lisa from Rebel Patch has produced a limited-edition set of organic cotton sew-on patches handmade right here in Bristol.

Each patch celebrates soil, community, and climate action. They’re perfect for gardeners, composters, and change makers who want to wear their values on their sleeve (literally!).

Lisa’s craftsmanship represents everything we love about Bristol: independent, creative, and regenerative.

Community Composting: Powered by Local Partnerships

Our composting network is made possible through the incredible businesses and organisations that trust us to collect and regenerate their food waste.

By keeping waste local, we turn yesterday’s leftovers into tomorrow’s living soil.

We currently collect food scraps from:

• Bruhaha Microbrewery: local brewers turning craft beer into circular sustainability.

• Square Food Foundation & Square Food Catering: pioneering Bristol food education and catering enterprises that close the loop from kitchen to compost.

• Cooking It Cookery School: teaching the next generation of chefs while ensuring no scrap goes to waste.

• Orchard Medical Practice, Willow Medical Practice, and Christchurch Medical Centre: community health centres helping us prove that healthy soil = healthy people.

• Two Trees Catering: local caterers dedicated to zero-waste cooking and composting collaboration.

Together, these partners have helped us divert tonnes of food waste from landfill, cut emissions, and build Bristol’s first living compost network.

Learning and Growing: Our Food Education Partners

Education is at the heart of regeneration. Over the past two years, we’ve been lucky to collaborate with schools, youth groups, festivals, and community organisations across the city, bringing soil science, composting, and circular food systems to life.

Here are some of the brilliant organisations we’ve worked with:

• UWE Bristol: hosting workshops on food systems and circular waste management.

• We The Curious: exploring the science of soil and microbes through interactive demonstrations.

• Square Food Foundation: co-running workshops on cooking, composting, and sustainability.

• St Werburgh's City Farm: hands-on soil sessions with young people learning how waste becomes life.

• Hazelnut Community Farm: local agroecology hub where we’ve helped host composting and soil-building days.

• Young Bristol: youth programmes empowering the next generation of environmental leaders.

• Babbasa: supporting young people from diverse backgrounds to explore green careers.

• Roots Allotments: demonstrating composting and no-dig growing techniques.

• Forwards Festival & Green Man Festival: bringing soil education to cultural spaces and sustainability tents.

• Feast On Festival & Future Leap: helping audiences understand the role of soil in food systems.

• BS3 Jammin: connecting compost, music, and community.

• South Gloucestershire Council: supporting local composting initiatives and workshops.

Every event has the same goal: to make soil science accessible and exciting for everyone, from toddlers with trowels to PhD students and policymakers.

Regeneration Through Collaboration

What makes Bristol’s regeneration movement special is how interconnected it is.

Our artists, educators, and entrepreneurs aren’t just doing their own thing; they’re part of a shared ecosystem of creativity and care.

Each craftsperson who sells through Generation Soil helps fund our educational work.

Each local business that joins our compost collection helps regenerate Bristol’s soils.

Each workshop builds the skills and confidence for the next generation to keep the movement growing.

This circular model means that every purchase, every bucket, every collaboration feeds back into Bristol’s soil, literally and figuratively.

Why Community Matters in Regeneration

At Generation Soil, we believe regeneration is only possible through relationships.

When we connect craftspeople, growers, businesses, and residents, we create a self-sustaining local ecosystem that mirrors nature itself: diverse, creative, and interdependent.

This is the future we’re building together:

🪱 Waste becomes compost.

🌾 Compost grows food.

🎨 Art celebrates the process.

💚 Community keeps it alive.

That’s the Bristol way of regeneration, rooted in creativity, collaboration, and care for the soil beneath us all.

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