// our story

A pre-university idea with a very adult ambition.

FRSH began with one uncomfortable fact: the food we throw away still holds the energy the sun spent growing it. Today FRSH is a pre-university, student-led non-profit helping students and households turn that fact into renewable energy.

// how it started

The background of FRSH.

What follows is our working history — written honestly, and updated as the story continues.

Chapter 1 · The question

“Where does the bin go?”

It started as a simple curiosity about what happens to a school cafeteria's leftover rice and vegetable peelings. The answer — landfill, methane, wasted energy — became the organisation's reason to exist.

Chapter 2 · The research

Discovering anaerobic digestion

We found that the same process landfills do accidentally, homes and campuses can do deliberately: capture biogas, recover energy, return fertiliser to the soil. The science was a century old; the student adoption was missing.

Chapter 3 · The organisation

From project to movement

FRSH was formally founded as a student-led, non-profit organisation with three pillars — Educate, Pilot, Mobilize — and one rule: everything we learn gets published, free.

// the founders

Who is building FRSH.

Two Executive Directors, one pre-university team, and a movement we intend to keep honest.

J
Co-Founder · Executive Director

Joanne

Leads FRSH's technical side — the science, the prototypes and the platform. Joanne provides the skills: the engineering and building that turn the organisation's ideas into working systems.

“We are not waiting to be university researchers to do something real about waste. The kitchen is our laboratory.”
M
Co-Founder · Executive Director

Matherine

Leads FRSH's content side — the research, the educational notes and the thinking behind everything we publish. Matherine provides the brain that decides what those skills should build.

“Impact is a habit, not an event. We design FRSH so students can keep showing up.”
Two students at a sunlit campus table reviewing notes beside a laptop and a sample jar of digestate
The working method — notes, samples, review.
// stand with us

Join the FRSH movement.

Applications are open for members, chapter leads and core-team roles. The form takes about five minutes, and a founder reads every one.

Start your application → Try the calculator
Free forever · student-led · no fees, no fine print