THE COMPOST COLLECTIVE

THE COMPOST COLLECTIVE As part of its approach to managing the city’s domestic organic waste, Auckland Council is taking an innovative approach to educating, inspiring and empowering the community to take up home composting. Richard Lee outlines an innovative new programme.

O

rganic waste makes up approximately 50 per cent of Auckland’s domestic

waste to landfill. Consequently, organics is a priority under Auckland Council’s 2012 Waste Management and Minimisation Plan (WMMP) in reducing the city’s waste. The big initiative will be the provision of a food waste collection service however, the need to educate, empower and inspire the community to respond to the issue themselves is a key aspect of reducing this waste burden. This is where Auckland Council’s Community WasteWise behaviour change programmes come in. On the prevention side, council recently successfully launched Love Food Hate Waste Auckland activations. However, not all food waste is preventable. The question is how to best manage the organic waste that is unavoidable.

The Compost Collective Designed to break down the myths and barriers that prevent people from composting at home, the Compost Collective is working hard to create a movement across Auckland that changes the perception from waste to resource and normalises this behaviour. As the name suggests the Compost Collective is just that, the programme operates as a collaborative partnership between Auckland Council and the community sector. Ecomatters Environment Trust and Kaipatiki Project collaborate on the delivery of the programme’s digital platform. This provides a central foundation for communications for the 14 independent composting experts embedded across Auckland’s diverse communities who report directly to council.

MARCH 2017 \ WASTEMINZ.ORG.NZ \

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e-commerce platform enabling the

Asian, Korean and Chinese

purchasing of a subsidised compost

communities.

bin, Bokashi system or worm farm. This ability to automatically

The digital platform

The team in the field operate in two ways. Firstly by delivering

collect data on programme

introductory workshops that are

participation and subsidy uptake

delivered in community halls and

provides the digital platform with

advertised in local newspapers.

real-time data that can be used

This traditional approach works for

to assess the success of and the

many people. However, the majority

impact of the programme and

of the work the team does is led

provides a foundation for future

by the community. Programme

evaluation of the programme.

participants often approach the

The keystone of Auckland Council’s

Supporting all of this is the

team to deliver bespoke workshops

composting programme is the

programme’s extensive social

digital platform and the website

or ask for technical advice and

networking capabilities. A specific

compostcollective.org.nz which

support. The team are also very

social media coordinator role is

acts as the main portal for the

proactive in their engagement by

built into the digital platform

community to interact with the

identifying and collaborating with

contract to keep the website fresh

programme. There is extensive

other potential partners.

by keeping the conversation alive

information on managing organic

through a wide range of popular

waste safely with online tutorials

social networking platforms. This

and short video clips outlining the

enables the programme to both

fundamental “How-tos” of worm

attract a wider demographic but

farming, composting and Bokashi.

also stay connected with people who

However, the website goes much

have previously participated in the

deeper than this basic composting

programme.

information. Its other main role is to act as a central hub for Aucklanders to upskill and learn hands-on composting by connecting with our network of community compost facilitators. Participants can register to attend workshops across the region through an interactive online calendar or can contact the compost facilitator in their community and organise bespoke workshops targeted for specific community groups and

each participant is issued with a

resulted in a fivefold increase in community participation over the

over 8500 face to face learning engagements.

the team of 14 compost facilitators.

run by Auckland Council with

For more information please

Auckland is one of the largest and

visit the Compost Collective website

most culturally diverse councils

compostcollective.org.nz or get in

in the world. Consequently, the 14

touch with Richard Lee on richard.

facilitators are contracted to work

[email protected].

with either a specific geographical or ethnic community. This is broken up into: •

Four contracts covering the high-density urban areas of Auckland

•

Four contracts servicing the geographically isolated areas to the rural north and south of the city as well as the Hauraki Gulf Islands

registration number is converted

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delivered 407 activities in total. This

makes the programme a success is

facilitator as attending a course, the

as a key to enter the programme’s

first 15 months, the programme

Beyond the website itself, what

the attendee is confirmed by the

to the participant. This code acts

has proven very successful. In the

previous composting programmes

unique identification number. Once

to a unique code that is emailed

The Compost Collective’s approach

Compost facilitators

organisations. At the point of registration,

Results

•

Five distinct ethnic community contracts servicing Tangata Whenua, Pasifika, South East

Richard Lee is the Community WasteWise Advisor (Programmes) for Auckland Council. With a degree in Social Ecology, Richard has built a 20 year career in the government and NGO sectors of both Australia and New Zealand partnering with local communities to facilitate change around a range of sustainability issues.