Now welcoming organisations located in central Wellington

Find out if you qualify for a free month trial - email us at compost@kaicycle.org.nz

Weekly food scrap collection subscription

  • How it works: We provide you with one or more 20-litre Kaicycle buckets to keep in your kitchen, and swap it with a fresh one each week. We collect using e-bikes and trailers, not trucks – reducing carbon emissions even further.

  • Cost: $19.60+GST per week, for up to 20 litres collected weekly. Up to two additional 20-L buckets can be provided for an additional $19.60+GST per week each. We offer a 30% discount for fellow not-for-profits. Billing is monthly.

  • Sign up: You can sign up via the Living Compost Hubs app, or by emailing us at compost@kaicycle.org.nz.

  • See our full collection service info here.

Ask us about a free trial month!

Not sure if your office produces enough food scraps? It’s hard to measure food scraps without collecting them separately, so we’re offering a free trial month to a limited number of organisations so you can see how much you actually have. Email us to see if this could be a good fit for you. 

What happens to your food scraps

Over a ~6 month manual composting process, our team of staff and volunteers turn your food scraps into beautiful nutrient-rich and biodiverse compost. The compost is then donated to local community gardens, marae and schools, used on our urban farm in Newtown to grow healthy kai, or sold to home gardeners.

What we accept

Please click here to see what we do and don’t accept. We work hard to avoid contamination of chemicals, plastics and other nasties in our compost. Please help us create high quality compost by following the guidelines and get in touch if you’re unsure.

 

What our customers say

“We compost with Kaicycle as part of our commitment to environmental sustainability. It’s often hard to find ways for an office to take real action on our commitment to sustainability, but Kaicycle offers us something we could easily take part in and makes a real difference to our local community.”

  • MartinJenkins, consultancy

“We compost with Kaicycle as it's a critical part of reducing our emissions to remain Climate Positive. Our kaupapa is also all about sharing with and uplifting our community, so why not do that with our food scraps that go on to help luscious soil for tasty kai to grow in, just down the road? We're stoked to be one of the community changemakers in Te Whanganui-a-Tara right alongside Kaicycle!”

  • two/fiftyseven, impact-focused coworking space 

The two/fifty seven team with their Kaicycle buckets

 

Why choose Kaicycle?

Trusted

Kaicycle has been collecting and composting food scraps for Wellington businesses and households since 2015, and we currently service 95 businesses in the central city.

Convenient

We collect direct from your kitchen, and give you a clean bucket each week, keeping things tidy and easy for staff.

Local

We’re a local not-for-profit based in Newtown, Pōneke. Our work helps create closed loop systems, improving local environmental health, kai security and community resilience of our city. 

Low carbon

We whiz around the city collecting food scraps using e-bikes and trailers, so we're very low carbon! Our fine-tuned composting process is also done by hand rather than machines, ensuring we make nutrient-rich compost that is teaming with fungi and healthy microbes.

Living Wage

We are proud to pay our hardworking team of cyclists and composters at or above the Living Wage.

Impact-oriented

In the last year, Kaicycle:

  • Diverted 41.3 tons of food scraps, preventing it from going to landfill and avoiding an estimated 28 tons CO2-e in landfill emissions

  • Donated 19 cubic metres of living compost to community gardens, māra kai, marae and schools

  • Hosted 38 group visits, events and workshops, for learners of all ages

  • Hosted 844 volunteer hours at at our Urban Farm and Compost Hub in Newtown

  • Grew and provided fresh produce to 20-35 local households every week, through our vege box and salad club CSA schemes

  • Established a new community food growing hub, Te Ngaehe o Rau ‘īnau, in partnership with Te Toi Mahana at one of their social housing buildings, hosting 103 people at community sessions over Feb and Mar and employing two tenants as part-time māra kai apprentices

  • Donated fresh produce to our volunteers, visitors and the Newtown Community & Cultural Centre’s Free Soup Fridays

  • Collaborated with a range of local organisations, including on 28 events, such as Garden to Table, Enviroschools, Seeds to Feeds, Sustainability Trust, Wellington Timebank, WCC, the Wellington Kai Security Network, Waste-Free Welly and the Aotearoa Composters Network, among others