Ogo Bamboo Project, Ogo-cho, Kita Ward, Kobe

A community group based in Ogo-cho, Kita Ward, Kobe, that since 2019 has been clearing neglected bamboo groves and putting the bamboo to use. Left alone, bamboo encroaches on fields, degrades the landscape and shelters crop-raiding animals, so continuous cutting is needed to return the hills to open, managed satoyama. Under the motto "tasty and fun", bamboo and shoots are upcycled instead of discarded — into domestic menma, bamboo craft and the transmission of those skills, and fertiliser made from bamboo chips. Its bamboo-chip compost is used in the Kobe Compost Project's public workshops.

Participants come not only from the locality but in large numbers from the built-up city — a majority from outside the area. Citizens take part in cutting bamboo, making domestic menma (bamboo shoots preserved as food), producing bamboo craft and passing on the techniques, and making fertiliser from bamboo chips.

Rather than discarding the bamboo and shoots that come out of clearing neglected groves, the project upcycles them into domestic menma, bamboo craft and bamboo-chip fertiliser, giving the clearing work an outlet of its own. The source does not describe its finances.

The group frames bamboo-chip composting as returning food waste to local soil and cycling it through fields, gardens and the hills — a small decarbonisation practice that does not lean entirely on incineration and haulage. Its stated goal is that participants leave able to keep composting at home rather than simply having done it once, so sessions share how to judge chip quantity, moisture, temperature and smell.

This entry is compiled from the public sources, official sites and research below.

• Official協力菜園・団体｜こうべコンポストプロジェクト（神戸市環境局資源循環課・公式） ↗compost.smartkobe-portal.com
• Official淡河バンブープロジェクト 公式Instagram ↗instagram.com