Our local Compost Hub, tucked along a coastal walkway within the Hobsonville Point community, is thriving. The hub has already been recognised as the Finalist at Zero Waste Awards that celebrate local zero waste heroes who are raising awareness and inspiring change.
Along with regular volunteers, Judith Rosamund, Kaipātiki Project’s Teaching Garden coordinator and the team have transformed the native nursery site at Hobsonville Point and launched a new Hobsonville Community Compost Hub in late 2020. First, we ran a pilot for a few months to ensure the process works well and to get ready to become an effective community compost hub.
The Compost Hub is a place where the local community can drop off their Bokashi food scraps, and we turn it into nutrient-rich compost. We’re enabling and encouraging people to divert their food scraps away from landfill, and instead use it to increase the fertility of local soil. We also want people to understand that our food scraps are a valuable resource that is wasted when sent to landfill.
In addition to growing the food forest, filled with organic vegetables, herbs and fruit trees, the group acknowledged that the food cycle does not end there. We recognised the need for a community compost hub to address the lack of garden space (and therefore composting area) in a densely populated residential housing environment filled with apartment living.
Once a week we empty the Bokashi drop-off bin and put them through our hot composters to make compost, a process that takes 3-4 months. All the compost is going to the community gardens and nourishes native plants at our nursery.
Bokashi is a great system for busy people who live in small spaces – it essentially pickles the food scraps allowing them to be stored for longer without going rotten, meaning people can drop off less frequently.
Our goal is to have a fully functional community composting site, where local residents can be a part of the solution and learn about soil regenerative processes, as well as being a showcase site to inspire and educate those who want to run their own Community Composting Hub.
