Last updated Aug 2025

What we accept

We work hard to prevent plastic, chemicals, and other nasties entering our soils and ecosystem. Please help us create high quality, healthy compost by following the guide below and get in touch if you’re unsure.

Kaicycle customers: Please print out the bucket guide here and stick it up in your kitchen close to your Kaicycle bucket. Please ensure everyone in your workplace/household is familiar with these do’s and don’ts.

Top 5 tips to play your part:

1. Remove stickers from fruit and veg - they’re our biggest menace!

2. No compostable packaging - they don’t fully break down

3. No paper, napkins, kitchen towels, baking paper or cardboard - they’re of no benefit to soil microbes

4. No meat, fish or dairy - they attract pests

5. No hair, nail clippings, floss or lint - they do not adhere to tikanga Māori

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 :)

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.

Alternatives to compostable and single-use packaging

• There are also many stores with refill/bulk bin options, like Commonsense, the Newtown Greengrocer, the Spicery, and the Spice Emporium.

• We love BYO containers! Like Reusabowl that you can buy at the Sustainability Trust in Te Aro. Some cafes and restaurants offer a discount when you BYO container, such as Hideout.

• Plus, Te Whanganui-a-Tara has plenty of awesome reuse schemes that we support: Again Again, Mug.Cycle and FillGood are just a few.

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

Get in touch if you’re unsure

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