Collaborative project: Citizens participate in data collection and analysis. 

Overall goals:   To provide technical assistance and effective tools to overcome the barriers that citizens face in composting, and to encourage more and more people to participate in this experience.  Specific goals:   Composting: Organics examines the participant's profile who decides to compost their organic waste and gathers information about how they carry out this process, what challenges they face, and how they overcome them. It also suggests finding out why there are citizens who are not interested or find it difficult to compost, either at home or in the community.  Composting: Organics aims at assessing the quality of the product developed (compost) by composters and, then, to determine its benefits. 

Description of citizen participation: Citizens answer a survey regarding the compost they produce, and then they are asked to bring samples of their finished compost for laboratory analysis. When the analyses are finished, they are invited to explain the findings, discuss them, and come up with solutions if there are any issues with the final product quality. This provides a foundation for sharing answers to common issues experienced by various urban composters. 

Time frame: 08/01/2021 - N/A 

Project leaders:  Verónica Pierini, School of Agricultural Studies/University of Buenos Aires (UBA)   María Semmartin, School of Agricultural Studies/UBA

Contact information:   Email: pierini@agro.uba.ar  Email: semmarti@agro.uba.ar   Web: www.labciudadano.net/composta-organicos/