ICAW Poster Contest

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Learn about the annual poster and video contests and see the winners for 2023. These contests run every year from September 1st to November 1st.

Each year, the International Compost Awareness Week Committee holds a poster contest to pick a new design for the annual poster. There is always a new theme for ICAW, which is highlighted on the poster as well as the dates for ICAW, which in 2023 will be May 7 – 13, 2023. The poster contest is open to anyone in the world age 14 or older. The video contest is for ages 10 – 13.

The 2023 International Compost Awareness Week (ICAW) theme is truly a collaborative and international effort. This year, we teamed up with the International Compost Alliance (ICA) to select: For Healthier Soil, Healthier Food…Compost! The theme was chosen by all the international partners incorporating our focus on compost to one of the initiatives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which is Zero Hunger: As part of the ICAW committee’s global discussion with our international partners around the world, we spoke the same language, and all wanted to promote a unified theme - aligning a topic important to each country while emphasizing our work with compost.

The chosen 2023 theme best reflects the goal of focusing on how compost can have a role in helping feed the world, by making soil healthier which produces a greater yield. How does compost help? By recycling organics into compost and using it on our farmlands we create healthy soils that produce healthier food and higher yields. It also reduces the need for fertilizer and pesticides, improves water quality and conserves water, as well as stores carbon in soil - helping to reduce climate change. Compost not only helps the environment but also helps to decrease food shortages experienced around the world. For Healthier Soil, Healthier Food…Compost!

Meet the ICAW 2023 Poster Contest Winner

This year’s winner of the ICAW 2023 Poster Contest is Jun Qi Tan. Out of hundreds and hundreds of entries from around the world (we received entries from 77 different countries), her entry was chosen. Jun Qi is an illustrator and storyteller from Singapore, and also a regenerative gardener and composter on the side. She told us that it has been almost three years since she started her home composting practice and her explorations in regenerative farming, and by now she has had her fair share of worm bin escapes and failed hot compost piles. She continues her practice in tending to her family's garden and occasionally helping out at community ones and donates surplus produce to her local community when she's able to. She looks forward to being able to raise awareness through her art about the aliveness of soil and compost and the integral role they play in healthy food systems and a healthy planet. You can find more of her work at https://tanjunqi.art. In case you don't know, the beautiful plant at the heart of the ICAW 2023 poster is the ancient grain amaranth, commonly grown in Southeast Asia.

We received so many wonderful poster design entries. Out of all the entries, those below were the top 14. Congratulations to these top 14 entries who rated so high with everyone who voted and thank you to everyone who took the time to enter the contest. Hopefully it was fun to create your design and it helped a lot of people from throughout the world learn more about ICAW and the many benefits of compost use and organics recycling.

For questions, please send an email to info@compostfoundation.org

Meet the ICAW 2023 Video Contest Winner

The winner of the ICAW 2023 Video Contest is Magna Iacomella Paz from Monte Hermoso, Argentina. She is 11 years old. Here's how she explained why she entered the contest:

I participated because I realized that composting is something interesting. I had not realized that throughout my life I have been composting a lot, because since I was a little girl I have been separating waste. My dad talks to me a lot about compost, and he tells me that when he was little he didn't separate the organic or prepare the compost. It seems crazy to me because then fruits and vegetables were less healthy. I think it's weird to throw a banana peel in the trash. The concept of my video is that composting is a circular thing, it starts and if you continue it never ends. To make this video I got help from a friend who is 11-years-old and my little sister who is 6. You can watch Magna's winning video HERE.