A new community laboratory in downtown Beijing is turning kitchen waste into fresh vegetables while fostering environmental awareness among urban youth, just days ahead of a major urban development conference in the Chinese capital.
The innovative space, which opened this week, allows residents to participate in circular agriculture by converting food scraps into fertilizer for rooftop gardens. Zhang Xue, a project initiator, told KhabarAsia the lab doubles as an educational summer camp: "Children who've never seen crops grow now monitor plant lifecycles while learning about resource conservation."
The initiative aligns with themes expected at the July 14-15 Central Urban Work Conference, which aims to develop cities that balance technological advancement with ecological resilience. Urban planners suggest such hyper-local projects could inform China's national strategy for sustainable urbanization.
Beyond practical farming skills, organizers say the lab builds community connections through shared harvests and workshops about waste reduction—a model that may inspire similar projects across Asia's rapidly developing cities.
