Costa in my back yard

Gardening Australia host Costa Georgiadis (centre) with YIMBY composters Joel Meadows, Sarah Newsam, Mikaela Beckley and Lucy Young.

ABC’s Gardening Australia program paid a visit to Castlemaine last Tuesday to meet a group of innovative composters.


Program host Costa Georgiadis explored the gardens of ‘Yes In My Back Yard’ members Mikaela Beckley and Sarah Newsam.


The film crew also followed the composters as they collected kitchen scraps from their neighbours.


“It was very entertaining for everyone walking by, there were a lot of selfies with Costa,” Mikaela said.


“He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for people … and selfies!”


Mikaela said producer Larissa Romensky (also a Castlemaine local) wanted to tell the story of YIMBY as a unique community composting initiative.


“Unlike other composting initiatives, we actually do the composting in our own back yards,” she said.

“A lot of composting initiatives fade away, but we’re into our fourth year and we’re still growing.


“We have 24 active composters running 19 composting hubs around the Castlemaine area.


“We’ve got 15 people on our waiting list to become composters and we’re processing the kitchen scraps from 300 households.

“We’ve composted 50,000 kilos of waste – we’ve stopped that going to landfill and we’ve made beautiful compost to replenish our soil in Castlemaine, which needs it!”


Sarah said Costa was friendly, down to earth and genuinely interested.

“Mikaela patiently explained the whole YIMBY system in small bites in different locations around the garden,” she said.


“I did my small part, tried not to stumble over my words, tried to be coherent and say something meaningful.

“The Gymbys – Ed, Connie and their dog Gus – came to do their bit, turning the compost.


“Then interviews with Joel Meadows and Mikaela with explanations of the hows and whys of YIMBY composting.

“A speedy demonstration layering of my compost pile and finally an interview with Lucy who brought the original idea of YIMBY to Castlemaine.”

PROJECT SEEKS SUPPORT


Mikaela said the group now needed more support and funding to go to the next level.


“We’re talking with council about how YIMBY sits within the framework of waste management and community building,” she said.
“It’s not just a waste initiative. As we’re walking around our community we’re meeting people and connecting and that’s actually a hugely valuable part of the project.


“We’ve got the fungi in our compost doing lots of work to enrich the soil and then we are like a network above the ground connecting people and building community resilience.


“We hope that the show helps raise our profile and helps us thrive.”

The episode will go to air later this year.