Last updated Feb 2024

What we accept

We are focused on capturing food waste, as this is the best source of nutrients for our compost, soil and growing kai. Please see below for info on what we do and don’t accept.

Kaicycle customers: Please ensure everyone in your workplace/household is familiar with these dos and don’ts. You can find a printable bucket guide here, which we recommend you stick up in your kitchen close to your Kaicycle bucket.

What’s this about compostable packaging?

Kaicycle no longer accepts compostable single-use packaging/serviceware, including paper/cardboard/starch/wool-based products as well as bioplastic products. This includes coffee cups, takeaway containers, cutlery, food wrappers/bags, and wool insulation from food boxes/meal kits.

This is for several reasons: 

  • It is often very difficult to tell the difference between home compostable, commercially compostable and non-compostable products, resulting in us receiving items (like conventional plastics) that we can’t compost (contamination);

  • Even if a product is certified as being home or commercially compostable, it may not break down well in our composting system, which is different to typical commercial composting operations;

  • Compostable packaging is tricky for us to process and doesn’t add any value to our finished compost, and ultimately, our soil;

  • There is a lack of transparency about chemical additives in compostable packaging, and increasing evidence that many common packaging additives do not break down and may be harmful to soil, ecological and human health;

  • All single-use products have a high resource and emissions cost. We support choosing reusable over single-use products, which are more climate-friendly. 

We are now only accepting the compostable liners we provide in our drop-off service for households, but we are sending these to landfill due to the above concerns about their ecological impact. We hope to phase out our use of single-use products completely in future.

We still accept: 

  • 100% paper coffee filters

  • Plastic-free teabags: Unfortunately, most teabags contain plastic. See a list of plastic-free ones that we will accept here. We still love loose-leaf the most, though :)

  • Paper/cardboard: e.g. from Ethique beauty products. Must be clean or contaminated with food/beverage waste only, and cut/ripped up into small pieces to help it compost faster

Alternatives to compostable and single-use packaging

We love BYO containers! Some cafes and restaurants offer a discount when you BYO container, such as Hideout. Plus, Wellington has plenty of awesome reuse schemes that we support: Again Again and Mug.Cycle are just a couple. There are also many stores with refill/bulk bin options, like Hopper, or that are willing to refill containers if you ask. 

Check out the Takeaway Throwaways website for plenty more neat ideas and info.

If you have any questions, please feel welcome to email us.