From his house on The Crescent, Gerry Gillespie advises farmers in several African countries and gardeners in Britain on how to make the most of their soil.

He has turned the plot on the edge of the road into a living example, complete with a fig tree, zucchini, strawberry, daikon radish and broad bean plants plus parsley, thyme and coriander - not to mention, African daisy, Japanese yellow plum and winter oats.

There are native plants to attract native bees.

Plants are chosen especially to attract birds. The bird droppings then enrich the soil and nourish the plants and more birds come in an ecological virtuous circle.

This urban biological paradise was created by Gerry Gillespie who helped get Canberra's yellow-top bin recycling scheme going.

He has become an expert on waste and how to make good use of it and he wants to extend schemes to re-use household food waste rather than throwing it out.

He has built up a reputation in several countries around the world for his expertise in soil and how to enrich it naturally.

He has helped keen recyclers in Wales, the United States, China, Japan and New Zealand. He is currently helping groups of women farmers in Namibia and Tanzania.

And he talks to passers-by in Queanbeyan who stop to look at the patch of plants.

"I was talking to a young girl and trying to explain to her what a zucchini was because she had never seen one on a plant. She'd only seen one in a supermarket," he said.

Mr Gillespie has just launched a book of his thoughts at the Paperchain book store in Manuka. The Waste Between Our Ears distils his advice on how to turn waste into useful matter, particularly to enrich soil.

The garden on public land outside his home is an embodiment of the philosophy.

Under what he calls "regenerative agriculture", plants drop leaves and the leaves turn to mulch and the mulch helps the plants grow.

"Most people learn in agricultural courses and horticultural courses that soil is a limited resource. It's true if you are talking in geological terms but we're saying that you can actually grow soil by using the right combination of plants," he said.

He chooses combinations of plants so they work together, drawing water from different levels of the soil or reaching different heights so they don't block each other out from the sun.

Mr Gillespie is a disciple for the idea that household waste shouldn't go to waste.

He believes it just needs a different, more creative way of thinking.

"It is our waste outputs that have caused climate change and destroyed our soils," he said.

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"Yet this very same detritus, if treated as a viable input into a next stage of our development, could readily become the point of salvation for all aspects of the human economy - if we could only change direction."

So runs his message from Queanbeyan. He has listeners all over the world.