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Cutting Down On Household Rubbish

Thursday 28 June 2012, 2:46PM

By Marlborough District Council

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MARLBOROUGH

As much as 40% of the rubbish that people put out in their Council bags for the kerbside collection is made up of food scraps and green waste – material that could be composted. Some households in Marlborough fill more than three rubbish bags each week.

Home composting can almost halve the number of rubbish bags a household uses. If everyone was to dispose of their food scraps this way it would go a long way to extending the life of our Council landfill.

The Council is currently applying for funding from the Ministry for the Environment to run a waste minimisation trial involving home composters. The plan is to select 500 Marlborough households to trial home compost units and track their household rubbish data to measure the impact that wide-scale composting would have on our rubbish volumes. The households will be chosen from the five different kerbside collection routes in Blenheim and Picton from amongst those that are generating three or more rubbish bags each week.

The Council expects to know later this year if funding has been approved. The process for selecting participating households will be publicised then.

Don’t wait for the trial; pick up a brochure from the Council and begin home composting now:

  • Help Nature to Help You
  • A Guide to Worm Composting
  • A Guide to EM Bokashi Composting

 

The same information is available on the Council website www.marlborough.govt.nz under Environment/Environmental-Education/Education-Programmes-For-Schools-And-School-Age-Children/Waste-Minimisation.