Open to residents in Newtown, Te Aro and Berhampore

How it works

1. Use a sealed container of your choice to collect your households’ food scraps during the week

2. Take it to your local compost hub at least once a week to keep things fresh (open 24/7)

3. Unlock the wheelie bin (using the code you’ll receive at sign-up)

4. Drop your scraps in and add a scoop of the provided coffee chaff to absorb excess moisture

5. Wash your container at home or on site (running water available at the Newtown & Berhampore hubs)

Note: if washing your own container is not an option for you (e.g. due to disability or access needs), let us know so we can make other arrangements. For those using the Te Aro hub, we offer a bucket swap system since there is no access to running water. Thank you for helping us be plastic free by avoiding single use plastic liners.

What we accept

Click here to see what we do and don’t accept. We work hard to prevent plastics, chemicals and other nasties from entering our soils and ecosystems. Please help us create high quality compost by following the guidelines and get in touch if you’re unsure.

Why pay to compost food scraps?

We operate a professional composting service at Kaicycle, which means we don’t operate quite like other community gardens that are powered by volunteers. We pay the Living Wage to our cyclists and composters for their mahi. So your subscription fee goes towards:

• Collecting your food scraps weekly by e-bike & trailer - transporting them from the hub to our urban farm

• Cleaning out the buckets, tubs and wheelie bins, and resetting them so they’re fresh each week

• Processing the food scraps by hand - removing fruit stickers and non-compostable items, and preparing the compost piles

• Monitoring our 30 compost piles over 4-6 months - turning them and ensuring ideal conditions for microbial activity (e.g. temperature, moisture, air flow)

• Maturing the compost for another 2 months - increasing activity from worms, invertebrates and fungi

• Donating our matured & living compost to marae, community gardens and schools, or using it on our own farm to grow organic kai

• Hosting events, workshops and volunteer sessions to share our composting and farming knowledge

• Improving our infrastructure and processes so that we can keep producing premium living compost that regenerates soils, grows healthy kai and nourishes our communities.

As a subscriber, you also get a 20% discount when buying our compost - find out more here.

Please let us know if price is a barrier for you, as we offer a discount for Community Service Card holders.
If you’re not in a position to pay at the moment but still want to put your scraps to good use - there are other community gardens that welcome food scrap donations for free - like Innermost Gardens, Miramar Prison Gardens, and Hataitai Men’s Shed - as well as private residents contactable via Peels.

Composting helps protect Te Taiao

Did you know that the average Wellington household disposes of 3.2kg of food per week? This adds up to 30,000 tonnes of food going to landfill per year - the same weight as 62 jumbo jets!

In a landfill, food waste is buried by other rubbish and crushed, which limits its exposure to sunlight, oxygen, and microorganisms. In this environment, food rots instead of composts and as it breaks down releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is 80 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.

Composting is good for the environment as it allows unavoidable food waste to break down naturally, with the help of oxygen, microorganisms, worms and fungi. The organic matter decomposes into a nutrient-rich soil-like material. This process helps to:

• reduce methane gas emissions

• reduce the volume of waste sent to landfill

• save money on rubbish fees

• return nutrients to the soil

• improve soil health and microbiology

• grow nutritious kai!