Waste Minimisation

Project Port Lyttelton’s Waste Management Project

This project aims to create food waste recycling systems for local eateries, schools and home gardens. Since November 2006 the Volcano restaurant in Lyttelton has filled four of our 80 litre wheelie bins per week with food waste layered with bokashi. The bins are wheeled away to a large vacant section, where they sit and “pickle” for one week before buried to create rich garden compost where we can grow crops for local use. Crops planted include rocket, coriander, sage, salad greens, Maori potatoes ,pumpkins and artichokes .
To date there have been over 400 bins dug in on this site and into several home gardens. We estimate over 30000 litres of food waste has been removed from rubbish trucks and diverted into productive use within the township.

Freeman’s Restaurant, Ground Foods and the Lyttleton Coffee Company are actively involved collecting their food waste for collection. Coffee husks and grounds are great to heat up our compost pods and the community garden worm farm.

Above ground compost “pods” have been started, layering the pickled food scraps with grass, garden waste with coffee grounds and sawdust to produce rich compost for use. .
From the bins we also drain an average of 3 liters of bokashi rich juice from each bin which is used as a liquid plant food at the community gardens or as a strong bacterial drain cleaner!

The next stage of our vision is to involve all Lyttleton schools in recycling their food waste through helping them to manage their own worm farms and to involve children in the process of growing healthy food for our community betterment. Lyttelton Main School has starting to collect their food waste for their new worm farm kindly subsidized by CCC and PPL, this will provide a wealth of working knowledge for our youth about the growing cycle, sustainability and recycling practices.

Many households have also asked for help in setting up and managing a bokashi system or worm farm at home, and many locals have already made good use of the community gardens worm farm and bokashi bin adding in their food scraps from home instead of putting it in their rubbish bags.

The project will expand to the Lyttelton Farmers Market shortly, we will be able to give local people information and demonstrations about how they can best compost their household food waste.

Our waste management pilot is progressing successfully, already employing two local people to help us achieve our aims. There are many more eateries in Lyttelton to come on board .

The potential for growth within this project is huge.
If you want to get in touch regarding any aspect of this project please contact -

Helene Smith.- Email sun_steeler@yahoo.com Phone 328 9243