Earlier this year the Auckland City Council began the rollout of the first-ever Food Scraps Kerbside Collection in Auckland.
It coincides with The Ministry for the Environments announcement of the new Waste Strategy. This is to standardise kerbside collection which includes making food scraps collection services available to households in all urban areas by 1st of January 2030.
So as the roll out continues in New Zealand’s largest city, what has been the insight so far to date?
Let’s start with The Good.
The good really is that we are addressing food waste and more importantly taking action!
This mindset shift aligns with reducing waste to landfills and serves as an opportunity to turn food waste into energy! (More on that later)
The other good thing is people want to do the right thing.
And whilst the idea of turning food waste into something positive is nothing new, i.e. Home Composting.
A city wide food scrap collection service in New Zealand’s largest city is.
This community and almost collective spirit feels like a lot of people who have the intention of home composting, but may not have the time, resources or know how. Now have an opportunity to be part of something good.
When our team recently posted getting their food scrap bins on social media, we received a surprisingly positive response and engagement, to the tune of over 45,000 views!!!
Yes, 45,000 views for a short video showing the food scrap bins.
What’s more interesting was the comments and the amount of excitement and willingness to participate in this new initiative.
Check out our TikTok page
The Bad thing is the obvious!
We are wasting way too much food and even worse good food!
If it wasn’t bad enough throwing away food scraps such as bones, apple cores or banana peels, New Zealander’s also have a tendency to throw away perfectly good food!
According to a summary by Love Food Hate Waste and a study conducted by Rabobank & KiwiHarvest Food Waste, New Zealanders a throwing away $3.2 Billion worth of food or over 100,000 tonnes of what they say is “perfectly good food”.
Given we are in a cost-of-living crisis, I am sure an extra $1510 per year would go a long way. That’s the estimated number of “perfectly good food” we are throwing away per household.
Now for the Great!
With positive change often comes new ways of doing things.
The new initiative to collect food waste and divert from landfill was one thing to tackle. The next part was what to do with it.
That’s where the lovely people from Ecogas come in!
Who will be turning the food waste collected into two new products;
1) Biogas used to heat a nearby glasshouse, and generate electricity to power the Ecogasplant!
2) Digestate or fertilser that is used on local farmland.
To learn more about this wonderful and innovative process check out video below.
So is all the fuss, changes and new ways of doing things worth it?
We believe it is.
It’s still early stages but so far the so good from what we can observe, and as more and more households in Auckland receive their food scrap bins its only a matter of time before the “new way” simply becomes “the way we do things”.
Till next time,
Hi-Tech Packaging Team