Jobs

Kaicyclist

Looking for outdoor work? Love cycling?

Kaicycle is a nonprofit composting and urban farming enterprise based in Newtown, Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington. We’re working from the grassroots up to recycle our city’s food scraps into living soil and imagine a new food system. We are looking for another cycle-savvy, environmentally-minded person to join our small team as a Kaicyclist.

Our Kaicyclists keep the wheels of our compost collection service turning for households and businesses in the CBD and central suburbs. The role involves riding around on electric cargo bikes and trailers to collect food scraps from our customers, and return them to our composting hub in Newtown, where our compost manager will process them into high quality compost. The collection buckets and gear are then rinsed and cleaned, ready for the next shift. When the weather is unsafe for cycling, we use a rented van to do the collections.

At present, we collect every Wednesday and Thursday; shifts are typically 6-8 hours long and completed within 8:45am and 5:15pm. We’re looking for someone who can commit to a minimum of one shift per week but preferably two.

Key details: 

Location: Wellington City
Employment type: Permanent part-time 
Time commitment: 1-2 shifts per week (8-16 hours)
Start date: Flexible, but asap ideally in August, minimum commitment of 6 months
Pay rate: Kaicycle pays the Living Wage $28.95 per hour. +8% holiday pay. +3% Kiwisaver contribution.
Notice period: 4 weeks

Essential experience and gear:

  • Plenty of experience and confidence cycling in urban areas

  • Lives in Wellington and preferably knows your way cycling around Wellington City

  • Full drivers’ licence (current and valid NZ or overseas licence) for occasional van use

  • Physically fit, able to safely and confidently lift heavy buckets and tubs full of food scraps

  • Able to attend monthly team meetings as part of the role

  • Follow health and safety protocols

  • Owns a bike helmet

  • Owns a smartphone with internet access and data (you will need to use small amounts to use Google Sheets and WhatsApp)

Ideal experience/qualities:

The ideal candidate would be keen on working outdoors and willing to work in all weathers; have great communication skills, self management and time management; and be keen to work in a small team alongside the diverse range of community members that come to our urban farm. In this role, you will usually be working solo but be in contact with your fellow Kaicyclist that day as required. Having a proactive, can-do attitude goes a long way in this role, as does a growth mindset to identify and feed back ways to continually improve our operations, keep records updated and seek efficiencies. 

Kaicycle is an inclusive community-orientated organisation and we wish to reflect that in our hiring. We encourage applications regardless of age, race, gender, or sexual orientation.

If you’re interested, we’d love to hear from you! Applications are open until 16th August, unless the role is filled earlier. To apply, please fill out our form here in lieu of a covering letter, and email your CV to compost@kaicycle.org.nz. If you have any questions or comments, you can contact Alex at compost@kaicycle.org.nz.