We are excited to announce we have started our compost project - turning waste from our community into beautiful compost which will be for sale in a few months' time.   We are collecting compostable waste from the Matakana Farmers Market, tea from Daily Organics Kombucha brewery, green waste and food scraps, and layering it up with carbon material for a balanced compost.  Anna Proctor and Ewan Briggs, our compost team, can be seen here putting a batch together.

Matakana Farmers Market has been a zero waste market since day one and were previously sending their waste all the way down to Tuakau to be composted, so we are stoked to be able to reduce the compost miles and process it right here in our community. 

We are using The Carbon Cycle Co. compost boxes which are super efficient.  A single Carbon Cycle composter can convert over 5 tons of organic matter into compost per year.

Good for the atmosphere
Good for the planet 
Good for the people

Special Offer - drop off your food scraps for free at our Lawrie Rd Recycling Centre for the first 6 months!  So if you're bringing a load of stuff over, bring your food scraps as well (but no rotten fish please!)

Collection box at the Matakana Farmers Market

Congratulations to Yiwei Song for guessing the correct weight of our giant pumpkins - 186.05 kg!  Well done!  Yiwei is pictured here at Matakana Farmers Market with his prize, a basket of zero waste  goodies worth $100.  The pumpkins attracted such a lot of attention and were very popular with the kids who loved sitting on them!

We are delighted to have raised $391 in the competition, which will go towards our new composting project on site at Lawrie Rd.  More details on that soon.

Auckland's kerbside collected paper and cardboard recycling is currently going to landfill
​because the paper mills in India where it was supposed to go for recycling have closed as a result of COVID-19.

What else can you do with it?  Here are some ideas:  compost it together with your kitchen scraps, line garden beds with it or make crafts, make paper clay, mini journals or use it for  building activities with kids.... there are so many uses!   Or if you have a wood burner, use it to light your fire over winter.

If you can, avoid accepting paper bags - instead use your re-usable cloth bags when shopping and wash them.  Just throw them in the washing machine and they will be completely safe to re-use, even in the COVID-19 environment.

Paper and cardboard produce large amounts of methane in the anaerobic landfill environment (i.e. no oxygen). It’s a little known fact that the methane production from paper and cardboard in landfill is actually much higher than from food waste. The bottom line is that we don’t want paper and cardboard going to landfill.

We encourage you to do what you can to avoid putting paper and cardboard into your recycling bin at the moment during the COVID-19 Pandemic shutdown.  We'll let you know when it can be properly recycled again.

​Our zero waste eco-warriors, Daniel and Alexandra, making a wonderful sign using home-made paint - cornflour, water and food colouring!  Very creative and non-toxic.

As the world struggles to adjust to the new reality of living with COVID-19, we recognise the importance of kindness, compassion and strength in our community during these challenging times. 

Since lockdown began, I have been in a one-person bubble with my cat, but sadly he's not much of a conversationalist!  I have however, taken solace in my garden and despite the drought it's never looked so good. Every day I am harvesting lots of food - it gives me so much satisfaction. 

I think many other people have taken to gardening over this time judging by the rush on buying seeds and seedlings before lockdown.  That can only be a good thing to make us more resilient.

With potentially only three weeks left to the end of level three, this is a great time to be looking after our soils by composting all our household food scraps and green waste.  For those who are not sure how to go about it, the Compost Collective, who usually run free courses all over the Auckland region, are now doing online courses on their website. Do check it out.