From scraps to soil: the UWE Bristol alum transforming campus food waste into fertile compost to feed university garden

A UWE Bristol alum has gone back to his roots to transform food waste from his former university into living, nutrient-rich compost to feed back into its student and staff-run Community Garden.

Alex Montgomery, founder and director of Generation Soil, studied a Masters in Sustainable Development in Practice at UWE Bristol where his passion for circular food systems began. He launched Generation Soil to reshape how society thinks about food waste.

Generation Soil will collect food waste from Wild Kitchen, UWE Bristol’s fully vegan café, and put it through a bokashi fermentation process, which layers waste in a mixture of bran, molasses, and microorganisms. Bokashi fermentation pre-composts the waste, kickstarting the decomposition process while preserving valuable nutrients.

Once fermented, the material will be turned into living compost, which is rich in microbes, before being returned to the university to enrich its Community Garden on Frenchay campus.

“Ninety-five per cent of our food comes from soil, yet around ninety per cent of soils could be degraded by 2050 if we don’t act now,” Alex explains. “Food waste doesn’t have to be a problem – it can be part of the solution. By composting locally, we can turn kitchen scraps into the foundation of future harvests.”

Over the course of six months, Wild Kitchen creates approximately 600kg of food waste, which is estimated to produce up to 400 litres of living compost that will be returned to UWE Bristol’s campuses.

UWE Bristol’s Community Garden is a space where students and staff can grow food, learn practical skills, and will now be able to experience first-hand how waste can be transformed into a resource that sustains new life.

Kat Corbett, Head of Circular Economy at UWE Bristol said: “Food waste is a significant challenge for an organisation of our size with catering outlets, halls of residence and staff kitchens. We’re committed to embedding circular economy principles in our operations to directly address the volumes of waste we create, to help reduce our carbon emissions.

“Working with Generation Soil not only aligns with our circular economy goals, it develops a local partnership with one of our alum that will have a positive and lasting environmental impact.”

Generation Soil operates community composting hubs and delivers education projects that reconnect people with what they’re eating and how their food is grown. It delivers living soil to individuals and projects throughout Bristol, aiming to close the loop on soil regeneration and local food production.