These individual bins are used to collect organic waste for compost.

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CHAMUSSY / SIPA

  • More and more French people are now composting their fruit and vegetable peelings.

  • To advance the science of composting, and the best way to have good compost, students from Toulouse have launched a call for volunteers to carry out an experiment for a month.

  • Participatory sciences that the Functional Ecology and Environment Laboratory intend to develop to bring residents and researchers together. 

Do you have a pair of pantyhose, three containers, some soil, coffee grounds, potatoes, a scale and a little patience at home?

You can quickly become a compostologist, in other words, an expert in compostology, the (almost) exact science of compost.

In any case, this is the challenge launched by students in Master 2 Ecosystems and Anthropization of the University Paul-Sabatier of Toulouse to all those who feel invested.

And no need to have a plot of 1,000 m2.

To advance knowledge on the role played by coffee grounds in the decomposition of peelings, the promoters of this project decided to appeal to citizens within the framework of participatory sciences.

Four students from our laboratory are launching a participatory science project on the #composte.


They need you!


You want to participate, it's here: https://t.co/TCRPwZkskW@CNRS_Toulouse @toulouseinp @Univ_Toulouse @INRAE_Tlse @Toulouse @VilleRamonville @sfecologie

- Functional Ecology & Environment Laboratory (@FuncEcolEnv) October 23, 2020

"We suggest they carry out an experiment with the objective of seeing whether the presence of water and coffee grounds positively affect the decomposition of the peelings", explains Thibault Leroy, one of the students whose study is coordinated by Ecolab, the Functional Ecology and Environment Laboratory (CNRS, INP, UPS).

For a month, the volunteers will follow a precise, "simple and fairly quick" protocol, and gradually see the evolution of their homemade compost.

An experiment which is all the more favorable during a period of confinement and which should begin, last carat, on November 15.

“There are as many theories about compost as there are people who make it.

The idea is to have a scientific verification, this also allows citizens to see how the world of research works and the world of research to take up more citizen questions ”, assures Arthur Compin, engineer of research within the laboratory.

Involve citizens

And there is another advantage of participatory science.

Usually, laboratory experiments are constrained in a given geographic area.

"Here we cover a wider geographical area, with participants from all over France, which will also allow us to see, for example, if the compost decomposes faster in the north than in the south, continues Regis Cereghino, deputy director of the Ecolab which wants to multiply this type of projects in the future.

When we see the multiplication of health and environmental challenges that we face, we realize that politicians must make decisions and appeal to science, for citizens to accept it, there must be a link between them and science .

"

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  • Recycling

  • Planet

  • Toulouse

  • Biodiversity

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  • Fruits and vegetables