Session on Composting

Composting is a natural way of decaying matter which is turning into forms that are used by plants to grow, by small animals to feed on, which holds microbial communities storing carbon and which has a capacity to regulate moisture on earth surface and store elements washed away during erosion. Composting is simply turning waste into life. Humans produce a lot of waste, much of it is organic and humans also have the knowledge to successfully and efficiently use and speed up the decomposition to restore the fertility of the soil that feeds them and other creatures. 

On the 17th of January at 9 am UK time/2.45 pm Nepal time we will be hosting an online talk on composting by Dr. Agata Gluszek-Kustusz, research scientist and lead of the sustainability group at the Institute of Cell Biology, University of Edinburgh (UK). The talk will provide basics on how to generate conditions to compost most organic waste at small home scale and how to use it to grow food and provide living conditions for other organisms.

Please get in touch (info@engagewithscience.org) if you would like to attend this event.

Agata Gluszek-Kustusz is originally from Poland where she spent her childhood playing with mud outdoors. Agata has always been interested in biology at all scales. She graduated in molecular cell biology, always maintaining a deep relation with mud and life within soil.Agata was involved in student’s projects on bioremediation and during her university gap year she gained some practical experience in bioremediation in a company in Glasgow where she analysed how stimulating bacterial growth could help degrade oil contamination in soil.

Agata did her PhD in molecular cell biology at the University of Edinburgh where she is also currently working as a postdoc. Her need in connection with outside nature and not just nature in a probe, led her to set up a sustainability group at the Institute of Cell Biology which looks into ways to minimize negative impact of laboratory research on the environment.

As a hobby, Agata practices permaculture, a way of designing and using land in a natural way, which does not produce waste but serves all components of the ecosystem. Composting is a key element of it and is her way back to playing with mud again. Agata will tell us how important composting is to living in harmony with nature and she will share her experience in composting techniques.