Doing small and good things for our planet

A few years ago, Chris, (TreeProject sponsor) and I (a TreeProject grower) decided to take a stand for the environment and create our own action plan to help promote sustainability and the environment amongst our friends and community.

We approached a local cafe and started collecting their used coffee grounds. We collect a minimum of 100kg of used grounds per week – that’s a whopping 5 tonnes of grounds that would otherwise be discarded into landfill each year. We’ve been doing this for the last 3 years!

In addition to the grounds we started collecting organic waste from a childcare centre across the road from us; hardwood sawdust (used mostly for carbon in compost) and timber off cuts (for artworks, garden stakes) from a local furniture maker. More recently we have included juice pulp and peel from the cafe (about 70kg per week) and coffee bean bags.

What do we do with it all? We distribute organic waste to a few community gardens (via our own membership and those of friends), we also have a group of locals who collect from us directly. The coffee bean bags will be given a second life, used by TreeProject to package sand for each grower kit.

The highlight for us is knowing that our small actions influence others either through awareness, interest or change in their behaviours. There are so many people doing so many small and good things for our planet, that collectively make a big difference.