Community composting in Zurich

05 June 2013

The city of Zürich started in the 1992 with a comprehensive Community Composting (CC) program. Currently (2008) more than 900 active community composting parks are up and running in the city of Zürich. The city of Zürich considers home and community composting of kitchen waste as a suitable solution providing environmental as well as social and financial benefits. Initiatives originate mostly by the residents themselves. Housing companies play an important role in the set up of CC Parks as most CC Parks (infrastructure and equipment) in Zürich are financed by them (up to 70%). Each CC Park is run by one or more volunteers. The city of Zürich has a database with all volunteers participating in the CC Parks program. The number of large CC Parks is diminishing and new CC Parks are either replaced by smaller ones. Besides community composting, a considerable number of residents practice home composting.

For more information:www.erz.ch, theo.roeoesli@zuerich.ch

General data

Country	Other non European countries
RA/LA	Zurich
Population	370.000 (2007)
Waste generated (kg/inh/y)	415 (2007)

Waste prevention activity data

Waste flow	Bio-waste : Food waste Bio-waste : Green waste
Strategy	Home and community composting
Scale	Roll out
Year(s) of tde project development	1992
Participation target	50.000 inhabitants (12% of the population)
Waste reduction target	Divert bio waste as much as possible from incineration.
Participation rate	2007 - 900 Community Composting parks with an average of 24 households (range from 2 to more than 100) participating per CC Park
Waste quantities reduced	Assuming that 21600 (900 CC parks x 24 HH/CC Parks) households participate this gives a total of 2160tons/y (21600 households x 100kg/household/y)bio waste diverted from centralized treatment
Budget	70% of the CC parks are financed by the housing companies. The remaining 30% by the city.