Case study: Hamilton City Council to reduce emissions from food waste by 2024
By 2024, Hamilton City Council aims to achieve a 10 per cent reduction in the amount of waste each person sends to landfill.
This goal – established in 2017 – is part of the council’s Waste Minimisation and Management Plan.
Food scraps made up a more than a third of household waste collected at the kerbside. To divert this organic waste from landfill, the council rolled out a city-wide, rates-funded ‘Para Kai’ kerbside collection of household food scraps. The weekly collection began in 2020 and is serviced by a fleet of specialised collection trucks, half of which are electric.
Food scraps are taken to the Hampton Downs composting plant, mixed with garden waste collected from residential drop-off points, and processed over 12 weeks to produce compost.
The compost is sold to commercial businesses, used for community projects, and residents can buy it for use in their gardens.
So far, over half of eligible properties have been using the food waste service. In just over a year, some 8,073 tonnes of food waste have been diverted from landfills.