What will happen to the food scraps and greenwaste in my green bin?

When the green bin collection starts in July, the green bin contents will go to the Redruth composting facility in Timaru. This allows us to deal with organic waste from Day 1 of our new contract. We wanted to introduce a green bin collection but thought we would have to wait two to three years until a new organics processing facility in Central Otago was built.

It’s still the aim to have our own facility in Central Otago, but in the meantime, we can get our organic waste (food scraps and green waste) composted in Timaru. Carting our organic waste to Timaru in diesel trucks isn’t ideal, but the reduction in landfill costs for all of us, as well as the lowering of landfill methane production for the next 2-3 years offsets that.

The organics collection will be commercially composted. This means that the compost will get to very high temperatures, which can destroy noxious weed seeds and pathogens. Once the compost is made, we will have it available for purchase at our transfer stations, and our Parks team will use it on our parks and reserves throughout the district.