Community composting improves your sense of humus.

SEVERAL afternoons a week, Glenda Lindsay pedals to two cafés near her home in Fitzroy. It’s not from their coffee she gets her buzz, but from their spent grounds and potato peels.

“Compost is an obvious connection in the food chain between the people cooking and selling food, and the people growing it,” she says. “When you use kitchen scraps from those businesses to create beautiful soil for growing food in, it helps join the dots.”

Last year, Ms Lindsay helped coordinate Compost Mates, a six-month trial in which teams of householders were rostered to pick up the compostable kitchen scraps from four cafes in Melbourne’s inner north. “That material would otherwise end up in mixed landfill producing methane,” she says.

The trial was run by food-growing advocate, Cultivating Community. Peta Christensen, from the organisation, says even at a small scale the scheme had a significant effect, because methane is such a potent greenhouse gas. “According to our calculations, across the four cafes, it was the equivalent of taking 100 cars off the road for a year.

“The model is about reclaiming that waste and using it as a resource in the community. Anyone can get a few neighbours together, make a roster and approach the local café,” she says.

It’s an idea that also works well for community gardens and schools. The Compost Mates trial included Fitzroy Primary School, which collects scraps from a nearby café for its school garden program.

For most enthusiasts, composting is a clandestine passion. Ms Christensen argues, however, that it makes a perfect collective activity. “Lots of people want to compost but they live in an apartment, don’t have the skills or worry it’s going to turn into a mess. Team-supported composting makes lots of sense.”

Community composting projects vary, from more formal proposals such as council collection or bike-powered tumblers in parks, to casual arrangements between neighbours. In the Sydney suburb Chippendale, the residents of Myrtle Street have installed compost bins on the footpath. Locally, residents involved in Transition Darebin held a public autumn leaf harvest. The fallen leaves help build healthy compost – they’re an excellent carbon-rich balance to the nitrogen-rich vegie scraps.

If you’re keen to try but would prefer not to bare your innermost peelings with your neighbours, most councils run home composting workshops or offer discounted bins. Contact your council for more information.

In her backyard, Ms Lindsay has several cubic metres of compost cooking at once. “In the city, there’s something very grounding about growing even the smallest bit of your own food,” she says, “just to see the miracle of the seed that goes in the soil and produces something you can eat.”

She recalls the proverb that “houses are the last crop of the land,” but is adamant that we must not let it be so. “It makes sense to try and grow as much food as close as possible to centres of population, but city land has often been neglected or contaminated.

“Compost is a really important factor in remediating soil – it increases its water retention and the nutritional value of food grown in it. With all of these food businesses in Melbourne, we have an amazing resource at our fingertips.”

The first little piggy had the right idea.

MARK Dearricott had worked for a decade as a bricklayer when he decided to help a friend with his straw bale construction business. “I thought it was pretty dodgy, building houses out of straw,” he admits. “But after the first few, I realised its potential was tremendous. It’s a brilliant material.”

Mr Dearricott now runs Professional Strawbale, and has built about 200 houses across Victoria. He’s flat out with projects and inquiries, often for the suburbs. “It’s a very versatile material. It suits any design, from a cute little cottage to a super-straight, ultra-modern house.”

He says a professionally built straw bale dwelling costs about 15 per cent more than standard brick-veneer, but makes for a much more comfortable home, with exceptional insulation and sound proofing.

Construction techniques vary: straw bales can be used in load bearing walls or as in-fill for a timber frame. In both cases, the bales are laid like giant bricks and then sealed with lime, cement or earthen render.

Mr Dearricott favours conventional post-and-beam frames for ease of construction and compliance with council regulations. He warns that while regional councils are now accustomed to straw bale homes, the planning process may not be so smooth with inner-city councils.

He says would-be clients have three main concerns: mice, water and fire. The render, usually about five centimetres thick, protects the bales against all three. “The straw is completely sealed,” he says. “Everything is rendered, including the tops of the walls.”

Nevertheless, it’s wise to include well-designed eaves to shelter the walls from the prevailing weather – they’re a must if you use earthen render.

Surprisingly, the bales don’t present an added bushfire risk. CSIRO testing, conducted in 2002, found that rendered bales are non-combustible under bushfire conditions. “The straw is compacted tightly and it won’t burn because there isn’t enough oxygen flow,” Mr Dearricott says.

Chris Rule and his family built their straw bale home near Bendigo five years ago. Mr Rule, a cartoonist and writer, has since designed and built another straw bale house and recently became a registered builder. “Straw bale enticed me into it,” he says. “It looks beautiful and its possibilities are so interesting.”

One of those possibilities is for householders to do some of the construction, and save on their costs. On a recent project, the owner and his friends spent a day laying the bales. “They had a lovely time learning how to do it,” Mr Rule says. “There was a real picnic atmosphere and they were building a house. It’s very low-tech, forgiving and fixable, so you can be involved. In the housing industry, people generally don’t get involved.”

He acknowledges that although the insulation provided by the bales is excellent, it’s just one part of good solar passive design. “If the house gets sun at the wrong time of the year and you haven’t designed your windows well, a straw bale home can shocking because the heat stays inside.”

As a building material, bales have many pluses. Straw is a waste product, often burned at season’s end; using it in construction stores carbon. It’s also renewable, biodegradable and non-toxic. When it’s sourced locally, Mr Rule says, it has very low embodied energy. “We got our straw from 2 kilometres down the road, opposite our family farm.”

For more information, see the Australasian Straw Bale Building Association, and Your Home’s straw bale fact sheet.

Compact homes take less and give more.

WHEN Edward Vinas and his family began planning their new home in East Brighton, they thought they’d go big. “It was probably because everyone else was building big places,” he says. “In our area, there are so many new houses and they’re built almost fence to fence.”

They visited volume builders, but it wasn’t long before they realised a large home would mean wasted space. “We’re a small family – my wife, myself and our son. When we thought out what we needed and why we needed it, a small house suited us better,” he says.

Zen Architects designed the family a two-bedroom home, with a convertible third bedroom and a study. It measures 140 square metres, including the outdoor decking. “It’s the perfect size for us. It feels spacious and we’ve got enough room to entertain both inside and outside,” Mr Vinas says.

The cost savings due to the modest size allowed for design and sustainability features they couldn’t otherwise have afforded, such as a reed-bed and sand filtration system that treats all greywater onsite.

“We don’t feel as though we’ve lost anything,” he says. “We feel like we’ve gained spare time. We didn’t want to be slaves to the home for its cleaning and maintenance. We’ve got better things to do.”

If house size is a guide, Australia is becoming a nation of constant cleaners. Research by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last year showed that our new houses are the largest in the world. The average floor area of new free-standing dwellings is 245 square metres. Meanwhile, through the decades, our households are comprised of fewer and fewer people.

Sustainability consultant Malcolm Wilkie says house size isn’t just a matter of lifestyle, but also ethics. Larger homes require more materials, more appliances and more stuff to fill the space, as well as more energy for heating and cooling. Inevitably, extra bathrooms mean higher water consumption.

“To sustain human life on the planet we have to conserve our resources and use only what we need,” he says. “We’re beyond the point where we can just say, ‘I earned it, so I can spend it.’ There’s a moral obligation to the next generations.”

Mr Wilkie argues that choosing a humble abode doesn’t mean sacrificing quality of life. With thoughtful, elegant design – and consideration of what really makes a house a home – a compact residence can improve your day-to-day existence. “A good way to think about it is, ‘What makes the building sing?’ I think a small house, with the right-sized spaces in it, is a nicer house to live in. If it’s too big, you lose the heart.”

In the US, the ‘small house movement’ is setting out to counterbalance oversized dwellings. The trend is founded on affordability, sustainability and simplicity, and a belief that larger lives are lived in littler spaces. The Small House Society, founded in 2002, acknowledges that ‘small’ is relative to occupancy and needs. Its supporters own homes ranging from just a dozen square metres, up to hundreds. Jay Shafer, author of The Small House Book, lived in only eight square metres.

“That’s going to the extreme to demonstrate what’s possible,” Mr Wilkie says. “They can do a lot with that living area – people start to get really clever when they’re tight for space.”

Contact Malcolm Wilkie.