The first batch of compost has been delivered to the Papakura community from a food scraps collection service that started in March this year.
Students from Papakura Intermediate School received over 5000 litres of compost for their maara kai (food garden), made from the food scrap collection service. The students will now get to choose what is grown in the garden, and then the harvested food will be used in class.
“This project is working and the food scraps are coming back into the ground. They’re being recycled and regenerated to benefit our community,” says Councillor Alf Filipaina.
Bec KauKau, principal of Papakura Intermediate School, says that the maara kai project is helping the school to meet its goals of being a guardian of the earth.
“We’ve been putting our leftover food scraps in the bin and now it’s coming back to us as usable compost. It’s a real privilege,” she says.
The food scraps service collects around 1500 tonnes of food per year from 17,000 households in Papakura.
The Papakura service is paving the way for Auckland’s first region-wide food scraps collection scheme, which is currently being designed.
A new kerbside food scraps collection service will be introduced across urban Auckland by 2021 and will see urban areas use three bins to reduce their household waste and save money on rubbish disposal.
