Compost, nature, habitat

THREE NEAT THINGS

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ISSUE 087 | May 2025

It’s been an interesting weekend. No matter where you sit politically, it felt like climate and community had a bit of a win. My 91 year old dad voted Greens for the first time in his life. That shift says a lot about where we’re headed.

This fortnight’s Three Neat Things is about things coming full circle: food scraps going to neighbours instead of landfill, a steep suburban block turned into habitat, and clever tools that show how much we can learn from nature’s way of doing things.

Also, I’m exploring community platforms like Circle and Skool for the next reiteration of Business of Biodiversity. If you’ve used one you rate, I’d love to hear.

Marnie x

1

Compost mates

It’s International Compost Awareness Week (!), and if you’ve got food scraps but no compost or council FOGO bin, there’s a brilliant little app called Peels that connects you with neighbours who do.

It’s like ShareWaste (RIP), but fresh and local - helping you keep scraps out of landfill while getting to know the compost crew around you.

We used to have chooks (Wilma, Pebbles and Betty) who were absolutely hopeless at eating scraps. They’d snub watermelon and grapes like they were above it. Big weirdos, but we miss them.

2

Ask Nature

AskNature is a free resource from the Biomimicry Institute that invites us to look to nature for sustainable design solutions. It offers a searchable library of over 1,700 biological strategies and hundreds of real-world innovations inspired by nature’s genius. 

Whether you’re an educator, designer, or simply curious, it’s a practical tool for learning how life’s time-tested patterns can guide human creativity.

3

In the press

The lovely garden of Surrey Hills Passivhaus is featured in the latest issue of Green magazine. The layered native garden by McNuttndorff Landscape Design transformed a steep, challenging site into a lush, welcoming space. 

Using mostly native plants, clever hardscaping and a thoughtful maintenance approach, it softened the streetscape while creating habitat and beauty in equal measure.