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News | 30 September 2024
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New Hot Rot compost system to save 50 tonnes of food scraps

For nine years, Kaicycle has been helping communities recycle their food waste and grow nutrient dense food. Now, with help from Wellington City Council Waste Minimisation Seed funding, they have set up a new Hot Rot composting machine and developed an app to continue to support local composting, including the Council’s community composting hubs trial.

A man and a woman standing next to a composting machine, collecting compost in their hands.
Workers Liam and Kate from Kaicycle with the new Hot Rot machine

This new machine is no ordinary system – it allows Kaicycle to recycle an additional 50 tonnes of food scraps from businesses and households in the middle of the city.

It also helps the team scale up their level of composting says Composting Manager of Kaicycle Kate Walmsley.

“We'd been composting a lot of food scraps at our urban farm in Newtown for years, which works really well but involves a lot of turning compost by hand! We started looking into equipment that would enable us to scale up and get more food scraps out of landfill and make more good compost to build local food resilience  while being kinder to our backs. 

“Then we came across this second-hand machine going very cheap, and we jumped on it. We brought it down from Tāmaki Makaurau and figured out a site for it.”

Kaicycle's Hot Rot is located in Rongotai in a shared space with other businesses aiming to do more for waste minimisation such as Nonstop Solutions, Yum Jar and Organic Waste Management – forming a ‘Zero Waste Hub’.

Some of this compost is then sold to help cover costs, with the rest being donated to local food growing initiatives such as community gardens, schools and marae. Kaicycle is a nonprofit and registered charity. 

A man and a woman standing infront of a composting machine.

In the past year, Kaicycle have not only diverted food scraps from landfill but also donated 19 cubic-metres of living compost to community gardens, māra kai, marae and schools, and there were 844 volunteer hours put in at the urban farm and compost hub in Newtown. 

Wellington City Council Senior Waste Minimisation Officer Joanna Langford says the Council has a goal to reduce organic waste to landfill by 50-70 percent by 2030, as part of the Council’s zero waste strategy.

She says Kaicycle's solution for businesses is helping to achieve our city's zero waste goals by saving tonnes of resources from going to landfill.

“Food scraps and garden waste make up about 58 percent of what households put in their rubbish. Composting reduces the production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from landfill and helps retain valuable soil nutrients. But good compost can be hard to come by, and expensive!”       

Kate is enthusiastic about local composting because it takes a problem – food scraps going to landfill and producing high emissions  and turns it into so many benefits for our community and ecosystem.

“There is so much potential to transform underutilised spaces and grow more food in our city  but plenty of compost is needed to make our urban soils healthier and more productive. 

Wellington businesses and organisations can reduce their waste to landfill and get behind this mission by signing up for Kaicycle’s weekly food scrap collection and composting service. Kaicycle is currently offering a free trial month to selected organisations.  

If you have an innovative idea to reduce waste, now is your chance to apply for up to 25k of Waste Minimisation Seed funding. Applications are open from 1 October and close Thursday 24 October. 

For more information visit our Waste Minimisation Seed Fund webpage