Compostunity by Vishva

Compostunity by Vishva - January 2024 Scholarship Essay

My STEAM Academy Team and I observed that many towns in my county had composting services except for my town. Therefore I decided to take this opportunity to create a composting project called Compostunity. Being able to collaborate with private and public corporations, I found myself achieving my dreams. This initiative not only allows me to create a better environment but also helps me interact with my community in a way that acknowledges and serves the needs of others, creating connections that make my world stronger.

Our main reason to start this service was to advocate and encourage the use of composting in farms to combat food waste and dependence on synthetic fertilizers, for the sake of the well-being of our community and our planet. To make our project more widespread and to reach a greater audience, we built a website. We are still in the works of creating a children’s book to impact as many generations as possible.

Apart from creating a website, we are also going to develop an app as it would be another great addition to making composting widely accessible and known. So far, we have created many educational videos and posters in multiple languages. We have partnered with student-led organizations such as the National Honors Society to expand our project. We have collaborated with Green Bucket Compost and the Office Of Sustainability from the town of West New York. GBC has pledged to offer us guidance and supplies to make the educational materials and the Office of Sustainability has offered us municipal support to our aid.

This is only the first step of our project. After spreading the word about composting to the citizens of our town, we plan on providing the organic fertilizer collected from the compost bins to our local farmers to alleviate food waste and discourage the use of artificial fertilizers for the environment.