Young Professionals Group Updates

Are you a young professional passionate about sustainability, committed to expanding the compost industry nation/worldwide, and looking to chat with other young professionals who will be attending COMPOST2021? Well, we've got just the event for you! Come join the US Composting Council’s Young Professionals Group at their COMPOST2021 Happy Hour on January 26 from 6 to 7 p.m. (Registration to VIRTUAL COMPOST2021 required.)

The Young Professionals Group began in October 2013 for those aged 18 to 40 (or with less than five years in the industry) to connect with each other through networking and volunteer events as well as to have the opportunity to learn from and interact with leaders in the compost industry. 

Here are some highlights of what they do together:

• Emerging Composter Competition: The Emerging Composter Competition allows young professionals to present their ideas in innovation and research for the composting industry to industry professionals during the annual conference for a chance to win prize money.
• Mentoring Program: The Mentoring Program allows young professionals to be paired with seasoned composting industry experts to get mentoring on things like entrepreneurship, facility management, compost technology, and policy work, to name a few.
• Webinars: The Young Professionals Group hosts webinars all year on topics, such as vermicomposting, Seal of Testing Assurance (STA), weather/geographic impacts on composting, and how to get a job in composting.
• Quarterly Calls, Newsletters, & Happy Hours: The Young Professionals Group hosts quarterly video calls and sends out quarterly newsletters to connect across the world. In addition, virtual happy hours are held occasionally to continue to build a stronger community.
• Conference Happy Hours & Volunteer Events: While at USCC annual conferences, the Young Professionals Group sponsors a happy hour at a local bar and volunteers the next day, after the conference, to do a local composting project, i.e. constructing composting bins for the community.

Once you are a member, you can join a committee to make some of this work happen!