Celebrating the first few months of Peels

Hi there,

Welcome to the first issue of the Peels newsletter. As a reminder, Peels is a volunteer-led community composting platform that launched in January this year.

We’ll be sending out updates 2–3 times a year, with a focus on how Peels supports community composting around the world.

---

What’s new

Peels started in January with zero composters and zero publicity. Since then (thanks to folks like you), we now have almost 300 listings around the world.

Most of our hosts are in Australia and the USA, but we’re also seeing compost communities spring up in New Zealand and the UK.

Below are just a few of our lovely hosts who happen have photos on their listings:

If you’re a Peels host and haven’t yet been contacted, thanks for your patience. Donor sign ups are growing steadily. In the meantime, consider adding a photo to your listing. Photos help donors feel more confident about reaching out.

A deeper dive

If you want to hear more about Peels’ first few months and how it relates to community composting more broadly, check out this blog post that I (Danny) recently wrote for LOCCAL.

I’d love to hear from you: what are your ideas for reaching more would-be composters? What’s happening in your community that Peels could better support?

---

What’s next

Peels is growing but we can’t do it alone. We’re looking for fellow volunteers to help with community outreach and technical contributions.

Community outreach

Many would-be compost donors and hosts simply haven’t heard about Peels. As a team of one (sometimes two), our outreach is limited.

Please reach out if you or someone you know can help promote Peels in your local area. Whether it’s to councils, waste educators, or local networks, any help is appreciated. Our promo kit is also a good place to start.

Technical contributions

Peels is now open source! That means the source code is public, documented, and ready for contributions. We had our first community contribution just the other day from Hugo in Canada.

You don’t need to write code to contribute to the ‘product’. For example, we’re tackling a tricky issue with how people are using the donor listing category in unexpected ways. Got ideas? Join the discussion!

---

Finally, if you know someone who has yet to make a listing or hasn’t reached out about a drop-off, please encourage them to do so.

Thanks for reading. What would you like to see more (or less) of on Peels or in future newsletter issues? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Happy composting,
Danny from Peels