From Surabaya to Bristol: What the UK Can Learn from Community Composting Success Stories

Rethinking Urban Waste: From Landfill to Living Soil

When people imagine waste management in big cities, they often picture fleets of trucks, massive plants, and complicated technology.

But one of the most inspiring examples of food waste reduction comes from Surabaya, Indonesia, a city that proved you don’t need expensive tech to make a real impact.

Surabaya’s story shows that community composting can solve urban food waste, restore soils, and build stronger communities. As Bristol faces similar challenges with waste, soil degradation, and local resilience, there’s a lot we can learn from their approach.

The Surabaya Model: Less Waste, More Community

Surabaya is home to nearly 3 million residents and, like most growing cities, once battled overflowing landfills, poor air quality, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead of relying on centralised waste systems, the city introduced a neighbourhood composting programme. Every district received simple composting units, and residents brought their food scraps directly.

The results were remarkable:

• Around 20% less organic waste going to landfill

• Cleaner streets and fewer odours

• Healthier soils for urban gardens

• Stronger community participation

This wasn’t driven by technology; it was driven by people, behaviour change, and local leadership.

Why Community Composting Works

Surabaya’s success wasn’t just about reducing waste; it reshaped the relationship between citizens and their environment.

Cleaner neighbourhoods

Fewer food scraps meant fewer pests, odours, and complaints.

Healthier soils

Compost returned to gardens and urban farms, enriching the soil and boosting food production.

Stronger communities

People saw the visible impact of their actions and took pride in caring for their local spaces.

Lower costs

By reducing transport and landfill expenses, the city saved money while improving our quality of life.

Community composting proved that waste management isn’t just about disposal, it’s about circulating nutrients and regenerating local ecosystems.

Lessons for Bristol

Bristol has already taken steps to reduce food waste through Bristol Waste Company, which collects household scraps for anaerobic digestion at GENeco in Avonmouth.

While that system generates renewable energy, it’s not perfect:

• Anaerobic digestion prioritises energy over soil regeneration.

• Contamination (plastic, metals, antibiotics) lowers digestate quality.

• Centralised systems still rely on truck transport, increasing emissions.

This is where community composting can complement, not compete with, the existing model.

If even 20% of Bristol’s households adopted decentralised composting as in Surabaya, we’d see:

• Thousands of tonnes of organic matter kept local

• Healthier urban soils for gardens, schools, and green spaces

• Stronger community networks reducing isolation and promoting resilience

Why Bokashi Makes Sense for Cities

Traditional composting can be tricky in small spaces, it can smell, take months, and often requires a garden.

That’s why bokashi fermentation is ideal for urban homes and flats.

✅ Smell-free thanks to beneficial lactic acid bacteria

✅ Handles more food types, including cooked food, meat, and bread

✅ Compact and fast, perfect for city living

By combining household bokashi systems with neighbourhood compost hubs, Bristol can recreate Surabaya’s success, but in a way that fits our local infrastructure and culture.

The Bristol Living Compost Project

This vision is already taking shape through the Bristol Living Compost Project, our mission to turn local food waste into living soil for community gardens and urban farms.

We’re creating a network of bokashi-powered compost hubs, where households drop off food scraps that are transformed into microbe-rich compost for local green spaces.

Our goal isn’t to replace Bristol Waste Company or GENeco, it’s to work alongside them by:

• Reducing contamination at the source

• Improving soil health through living compost

• Keeping nutrients cycling within Bristol

If you live in Bristol, you can get involved:

🌱 Join the Bristol Living Compost Project

🧑‍🏫 Book a composting workshop for your street, school, or workplace

🪱 Order living compost for your garden or allotment

Final Thoughts: Building a Local Compost Revolution

If Surabaya can turn its waste crisis into a community solution, so can Bristol.

We’re starting small with buckets, microbes, and neighbours, but with your support, we can build a movement that restores soil, strengthens communities, and keeps Bristol’s food waste where it belongs: in the ground, not the bin.

Join the Bristol Living Compost Project today to help regenerate our city, one caddy at a time.