Composting Facilities Tour with Zero Waste Network

From community initiatives to commercial scale, this multi day bus tour will showcase varying composting methods, scales and the solution they provide for diverting food waste from landfill.

Whether you are interested in vermicomposting or traditional composting, this tour will provide you with inspiration and insight into what composting system could suit your community and environment.

Tour Details:

• 13th & 14th September 2022
• Starting in Auckland at 8.00am on the 13th September
• Finishing in Auckland at 6.00pm on the 14th September
• 2 days / 1 night (we will be staying the night in Taupo)
• We will be traveling together in a mini bus
• Limited capacity

Site visits included in tour:

• Soil Factory @ Kelmarna Garden, Auckland
• Envirofert, Tuakau
• Xtreme Zero Waste, Raglan
• MyNoke, Taupo

Accomodation:

• We will be spending the night in Taupo
• All tour participants will be sharing studio rooms with 1 or 2 others.
• Please notify us if there is someone you would like to share a room with.

Tour Fees:

• Community rate: $750.00 (excl gst & booking fee)
• Standard rate: $1150.00 (excl gst & booking fee)

Tour fees will cover 1 nights accommodation in Taupo, travel & site tours.

Travel to and from the starting point in Auckland is not included

We will not be providing food but the tour will include scheduled stops for attendees to purchase their own meals.

Payments can be made via invoices rather than booking online. Get in touch with isy@zerowaste.co.nz

Cancellation Policy:

Cancellations up to and including 7 days before the tour start date will be refunded (minus booking and service fees). Any cancellations made after this date (6 days before training course) will not be refunded.

Please note: We need a minimum number of 10 people to go ahead with the tour. If we don't get the numbers needed the tour will be canceled. In this unlikely case, you will be notified 3 weeks prior to the tour commencing.

Site information:

MyNoke

Their name 'Noke' is the Te Reo Maori word for "earthworm'. They are the largest worm farm operators in world and the leading suppliers of earthworms and earthworm products in New Zealand.

The services MyNOKE provides - regenerative resource management (vermicomposting) - means valuable nutrients are diverted from landfill. Instead of going to waste, these nutrients are returned to the soil, where they came from. This includes food, vegetation, biosolids, paper or cardboard waste, offering an all-natural, environmentally sensitive disposal arrangement as an alternative to landfill.

Organic waste from councils and businesses, diverted from landfill, is fed to our special earthworms to be digested. Waste is reduced by 80% volume, and is transformed into 'vermicast' also known as 'worm poo': the best carbon-rich, biologically active, plant growth-promoting soil conditioner you can imagine.

Vermicast is used around the world in agriculture, horticulture, glasshouses, nurseries, vegetable gardens, allotments and in potting mixes. Valuable both commercially and for home garden use, even in container gardening.

Watch a short video here

Envirofert

Envirofert is fully consented to dispose of organic waste including green waste, food waste, compostable packaging & inert waste (approved industrial waste and non-contaminated soil and clay)

Located close to Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga, Envirofert’s site is ideally placed to manage foodwaste processing. Watch a short video on their process here

Along with MyNoke, Envirofert will be representing the commercial scale of composting on the tour.

Watch a short video here

Soil Factory at Kelmarna Gardens

Soil Factory at Kelmarna Gardens is a community composting social enterprise that collects food scraps from homes and businesses in the community and turns those scraps into beautiful compost to grow more food at their urban community farm. They manage subscriptions for drop-off customers and bike-powered collections within an area covering parts of Ponsonby, Herne Bay, and Grey Lynn. Thanks to the high temperatures and rat-proof design of their CarbonCycle Company composting bins, they can compost most kitchen scraps, including things that aren't generally compostable at home.

As a social enterprise, Soil Factory is operated to provide services in exchange for payment in order to sustain their purpose-driven operations, will all proceeds directly contributing to their waste reduction kaupapa and supporting Kelmarna Gardens as a non-profit registered charitable organisation working to connect people with nature and food growing, to facilitate inquiry- and skills-based educational opportunities, and to maintain a safe and inclusive space for people with experience of mental illness or disability to garden for therapy.

Soil Factory is a great example of community scale urban composting. This is the only site on the tour that showcases a closed loop organic system that is directly tied to food growing. This circular system comes with a range of other benefits for the community including food security, soil restoration, and facilitating careers in regenerative urban agriculture.

Watch a short video here

Xtreme Zero Waste

Xtreme Zero Waste is a community, not for profit enterprise located in Whaingaroa/Raglan. XZW initiated and operates a household kerbside foodwaste collection and a large scale community composting facility. Designed within the concept of Circular Economy and local food resilience this operation was rolled out in 2017 and has operated continuously for 5 years, even through Covid 19. The Horizontal Composting Unit processes foodwaste and chipped greenwaste weekly and is currently processing between 3 and 5 tonnes of foodwaste per week and approximately the same amount of greenwaste mulch. Greenwaste that can’t be chipped is composted at the same site as the horizontal composting unit and a small range of quality compost products produced which are all sold locally.