Food Waste
When organic material is buried in landfill it breaks down in a way that generates methane, a greenhouse gas which is harmful to the environment.
"The world's 'tragically high' food waste problem is worse than previously thought", according to this Stuff article.
This includes kitchen waste, vegetable peelings, leftovers, scraps, rotten and spoiled food.
A Wikipedia article on food waste in New Zealand reports: The average New Zealand household in 2018 wasted $644 worth of food per annum, approximately 86 kilos. The top ten foods wasted by volume order were 1. Bread 2. Left overs 3. Oranges and Mandarins 4. Apples 5. Bananas 6. Potatoes 7. Poultry 8. Rice 9. Lettuces 10. Beef.
Love Food Hate Waste has great information and resources. Ask the Waste Adviser at the Whanganui District Council which is fully supportive of this initiative and has these resources available for community use.
You can reduce your food waste by planning your meals, only purchasing what you need, saving leftovers for future meals and using perishable ingredients before they spoil.
The good people at Love Food Hate Waste have a website with a brilliant resource: A-Z STORAGE GUIDE - featuring the best ways to store your food to keep it fresher for longer!
Reduce eggshell waste in particular with these creative ideas.
Turn your food waste into compost!
Subscribe to Easy Earth composting pickup service.
Sharewaste is a website (and there is an app) which connects people who want to recycle their kitchen scraps with neighbours who compost, have a worm farm or keep chickens. It's free to join either as a host or donor.
Gardens That Matter has a great infographic to help with deciding which compost system to use and plenty more composting help.
Easy Earth, a local business which runs a hot rot composting system, offers a home and business collection service. It has a bucket swap-zone set up at the Crazy Pumpkin on Taupo Quay, and at the Whanganui Resource Recovery Centre.
If you don't have a composting system yourself, ask friends and neighbours if they would like your food waste to add to theirs.