★ The Cocopelli Urban Team integrates over 10 years of urban ecological practice and teaching experience to create an easy-to-understand, practical composting guide specially designed for modern families and educational institutions!
★ Detailed introduction of four mainstream composting methods, including cold/hot composting, vermicomposting, and Bokashi composting, accompanied by step-by-step guides and practical tips to easily transform kitchen waste into garden soil.
★ Thoughtfully designed with interactive compost record pages and fun knowledge modules, perfect for parent-child learning and school environmental education!

Transforming Our Waste!
For the question, “How should we deal with waste in urban life?”, we and the Cocopelli Urban Team have an answer:
Composting!
Composting is a practice that dates back to ancient times.
Its basic logic lies in understanding and mimicking the way life and soil operate.
You can use this book as a guide to get started.
You will see that making compost from waste is actually very simple. For soil restoration and healthy eating:
Long live composting!

“From Garbage to Soil: A Compost Story ” is an informative book that introduces various methods for establishing self-sufficient gardens at school and home, where children and adults learn composting together!

About the Authors
Ayşe Soylu
The author graduated from Yıldız Technical University’s Department of French Translation and Interpretation, later obtaining a pedagogical formation certificate from Marmara University and beginning her career as a French teacher. During her work, her interest in alternative educational methods grew. She was particularly inspired by democratic schools, natural pedagogy, and the Reggio Emilia approach, and began applying these methods in her work with children. Through opportunities that allowed her to explore new fields, she encountered permaculture. To follow children’s endless curiosity about nature and the earth and to conduct research with them, she decided to shift her experience in education toward permaculture. To this end, she has been collaborating with the Cocopelli Urban Team since 2020.

Elif Çatıkkaş
The author graduated from Koç University’s Department of Computer Engineering in 2006 and worked in information technology in the banking sector for over 10 years. In 2016, inspired by building an earthen oven in a kindergarten garden, she began researching natural building. After obtaining her Permaculture Design Certificate in 2018, she completed “Holistic Management” training within the Savory Network. That same year, she completed the “Applied Horticulture” certification program at the Nezahat Gökyiğit Botanical Garden in Istanbul. She also completed the “Permaculture Design Certificate Teacher Training” and “Children in Permaculture” training. She had the opportunity to experience and research ecological construction and natural living in rural areas. She combines inspiration from sustainability principles learned from her grandmother’s practices with ideas that blend tradition and the future. By completing her master’s education in cultural studies at Bilgi University, she integrated practical knowledge with theoretical foundations. She is the mother of Kerem, co-founder of the Cocopelli Urban Team, and a founding member of the Life Soil Association.

Yasemin Kırkağaçlıoğlu
The author graduated from Koç University’s Department of Business and worked in consulting and strategic management for nearly 10 years. With the birth of Can and Ela, she began thinking more deeply about access to healthy food and encountered permaculture during this time. She obtained her Permaculture Design Certificate in 2017. That same year, she co-founded the Cocopelli Urban Team with Elif Çatkkaş, providing education, design, and application consulting on urban ecological living and food cultivation for individuals, schools, and companies. In 2019, she participated in the “Permaculture Design Certificate Teacher Training,” “Children in Permaculture,” and a small-scale farming training at the “Ridge Valley Permaculture” farm in Sweden. She believes that personal steps taken through the connections we build can trigger change and conducts research toward this goal. As a founding member of the Life Soil Association, she continues to establish self-sufficient gardens in schools with children and teachers.

About the Illustrator
Asya Fatma Bağcı
Artist, born in İzmir in 1989, began painting at a very young age and has won numerous national and international awards. After graduating at the top of her class from the Painting Department of a fine arts high school, she continued her studies in the Graphic Design Department at Anadolu University in 2007. Due to her achievements during her undergraduate studies, she had the opportunity to study Visual Communication at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in Germany in 2009 and at Volda University College in Norway in 2012. The artist began her master’s studies in advertising and completed them in 2018 at Université Montaigne Bordeaux in France. Since 2016, Bacı has continued her design work at the United Nations Turkey Office.

Forest Hike 7
Life Cycle 10
Life in the Soil 12
Soil Food Web 14
Structure of the Soil 16
Compost 22
Why Compost? 24
Types of Compost 27
Where Can You Compost? 28
Types of Gardens 30
Cold Composting 32
Hot Composting 38
Household Types 44
Vermicomposting 46
Getting to Know Worms 52
Bokashi Composting 54
How Can I Use My Compost? 62
Did You Know? 64
My Compost Diary 68
Glossary 70
Compost Roulette 74