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$157,068 DISTRIBUTED TO OUR COMMUNITIES IN 2024
$ 14,891,288 TOTAL DISTRIBUTED TO OUR COMMUNITIES

Compost collection service helps community reduce food waste.

Operating on Waiheke since 1998, Waiheke Resources Trust (WRT) is a sustainability-focused organisation that aims to educate and inform the community, visitors and local businesses on sustainable practice.

In 2019 a generous Auckland Foundation donor helped WRT to complete a solar panel project to make the Waiheke Sustainability Centre, which WRT runs, a more sustainable place.

Now a new WRT initiative to minimise the amount of food going to landfill has also been supported by the same donor.

The Compost Co. provides a food waste collection service that also processes the collected waste and transforms it into high-nutrient compost.

"We are committed to diverting compostable products from landfill and creating a living nutritious compost to replenish local soils," says Prashanti Lovegrove, The Compost Co. Project Manager.

Food scraps and compostables such as paper packaging are collected from local businesses and community groups twice a week, which are then processed through hot compost bins.

The initiative is already seeing significant growth despite only being in operation since February 2018.

Last year the Compost Co. diverted and processed 19,403 kgs of food scraps - a 400% increase from 2018 - and an additional 1,920 kgs of compostable products were diverted from landfill.

"Thanks to Auckland Foundation and the generous grant, we'll be able to build The Compost Co.'s capacity by promoting our new residential food drop off. This will give locals a way of getting rid of their food scraps if they don't have the ability or time to compost at home."

The Compost Co. is also continuing its work educating the public about household composting methods like Bokashi composting, traditional composting and worm farms.

If you're interested in finding out more about this initiative, you can watch a short video here; or if you're interested in any of the WRT's other sustainability work, visit www.wrt.org.nz or the Waiheke Sustainability Centre in person.

 

Photo supplied by Waiheke Resources Trust.