Cork Urban Soil Project (CUSP) imagines a Food Secure Cork City. You need soil to be secure and CUSP creates community-scale composting. Our mission is to test urban food soil creation methods using would-be waste products like food scraps.
Our first test uses an aerobic biodigestor, Joraform, donated by MTU. Working with the community, we aim to model new ways of addressing the city’s waste streams and to support food sovereignty.
In 2022 with support from a Circular Economy Innovation Grant Scheme, CUSP modelled a community-scale circular food system. Such a system demonstrates the circular flows of food, from compost to an urban farm to the table, back to compost in an urban community.
Simply put, “Grow, eat, compost, repeat.” The purpose of the CEIGS project was fivefold:
- Compost a combined 18 tonnes of food scraps and paper/cardboard waste.
- Develop an urban garden where the compost can be used to grow more food.
- Test one type of small-scale composting technology (an aerobic biodigester) in an urban setting.
- Increase public awareness of the general concept of the circular economy (and the “closed loop” systems found in nature) through demonstrations in the food system.
- Support and encourage further development of community-scale composting and circular food systems in Ireland by documenting and disseminating the project’s findings and by building a network of those interested in advancing it.
The project continues to explore small-scale strategies for converting urban food scraps into a resource, “closed loop”/circular systems, & creating community through compost.
More details on the CUSP Website & Social Media: