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Completely Compost: Western Southland
Compostable organic materials make up up to 30% of waste sent to Southland's landfill. The United Nations has stated that if food waste was a country it would be the third largest global emitter of greenhouse gases. At the same time, it has been suggested that amending soils with well-made compost can significantly mitigate climate change.
We are thrilled to have some funding from Wastenet Southland to build the capacity of our Western Southland communities to keep food waste out of landfill, make great compost and increase community food resilience across Southland.
This will include a few different approaches:
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home visits to get non-composters started and help build confidence in existing composters;
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connecting people who can't compost with keen gardeners who want to make more compost;
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building infrastructure and capacity at community locations (community gardens, marae etc.) to do larger-scale composting.
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We have the ability to provide heavily subsidised compost bins (like these), resources like sawdust or woodchips to add bulky carbon-rich material, larger-scale composters for community locations and workshops to support people interested in a range of different composting methods.
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There are many community composting programmes in place globally and in New Zealand. Each of these is developed to suit the specific needs of the community in which it is operating. We are glad to be members of the Aotearoa Composters Network, a nation-wide group of passionate composters dedicated to sharing expertise and ideas and supporting composting in all its many forms.
If you would like to be involved in a community composting programme in any way, please get in touch: completelycompost@gmail.com or call 03 234 8717
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If you would like to learn about composting and organic gardening, check out our organic gardening page.
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Some examples of community compost from around New Zealand:
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