Welcome to the UConn Master Composter Program!
Approximately 25% of a typical household's waste can be recycled right in our own backyards!
This significantly reduces the amount of solid waste being incinerated or landfilled.
The UConn Home and Garden Education Center developed the UConn Master Composter Program in 2009. We hold the program annually to educate and train Connecticut residents about backyard and small-scale composting and to assist participants in sharing this knowledge with others.
The program consists of four class sessions and one to two field trips.
Those enrolled in the Master Composter program will learn:
- The importance of reducing the amount of waste to send to incinerators and landfills
- How individuals and communities benefit from composting
- The art and science of composting
- The many ways that compost improves soils
- Techniques for creating and maintaining backyard composting systems
- Use of compost in an environmentally sound manner
- Composting with worms (vermicomposting) and making and maintaining a worm bin
- Teaching and leading others through community outreach projects
In addition, students will join occasional field trips to municipal, industrial, small scale, and/or on-farm composting sites.
Why Become a Master Composter?
By encouraging Connecticut residents to recycle organic waste materials that would otherwise be incinerated or landfilled. UConn Extension Master Composters promote sustainable living and resource conservation at the family and community levels by educating the public and through outreach project participation. You too can make a difference!
Who Can Become a UConn Master Composter?
Anyone can become a UConn Master Composter, whether you compost now or not. If you want to learn and share your composting skills and knowledge with the public, you can become a UConn Master Composter!
Learn more, including how to enroll in the 2024 Master Composter class.