Apartment residents can choose to compost in their apartment, on their balcony, or outsource the job. Photo / Getty Images
Apartment residents can choose to compost in their apartment, on their balcony, or outsource the job. Photo / Getty Images
THREE KEY FACTS:
Composting is a solution to the problem of food waste.
About 30% of Kiwis live in apartments.
Community composting services are available, and bokashi bins can be kept in the kitchen.
Kate Hall is an author, speaker and content creator focusing on sustainable living and ethical consumerism, widely known by New Zealanders as “Ethically Kate”.
OPINION
Kate Hall explores practical methods like bokashi, worm farms, and community composting services that empower apartment residents to convert food scraps into soil, reducing landfill waste significantly.
If you don’t have an obvious outdoor possie for that classic black, square compost bin we all know and love, composting is impossible. This myth is holding thousands of people back from reducing their waste and making valuable soil. About 30% of people in Aotearoa New Zealand live in apartment spaces and they could all be composting their food scraps. Apartment residents can choose to compost in their apartment, on their balcony or outsource the job. The opportunities to ensure food waste gets turned into nutrient-rich soil instead of being mummified in landfill are abundant, we just need to demystify them and get started!
Compost in your apartment
Before you screw your nose up at the idea of rotting food in your house, find peace in the fact millions of people worldwide compost in their apartments and (when it’s done correctly) their houses do not stink.
Apartment composting bins are compact, with airtight seals and odour-resistant mechanisms. In 2024 we’re lucky to have so many apartment composting options. Some of them fit under your kitchen sink, others sit easily on your kitchen counter.
The Urban Composter is a common solution that involves the bokashi method. A small bin sits in your kitchen and a larger bin in your laundry or apartment balcony. Compost accelerator (a fermented fruit concoction) is sprayed inside the bin every time you add to it. Most things can be added to this composter. Food scraps, like orange peels and eggshells, leafy greens and even meat scraps and dairy products too. The lid is sealed tight after every use to speed up fermentation and eliminate odours. Once the smaller bin is full, empty it into the bin outside to continue fermenting. The soil from the larger bin can be dropped off at your friend or family member’s house to dig into their garden or you could use it in your apartment vegetable garden.
The Urban Composter is a common solution that involves the bokashi method. Photo / Getty Images
Worm farms are another food waste system that apartment inhabitants love. Most worm farms, regardless of what type of spaces they are designed for, are small and contained. Like the bokashi method, a worm farm can sit on your balcony or live in the bottom of your pantry. Worm farms are known for being odour-free, space-efficient and generally a lot of fun. It’s common for a worm farmer to become so attached to their work that they start to see their worms as low-maintenance pets instead of a food waste system.
Use a service
Curbside composting collection services are becoming increasingly more common around the country. Although not all apartments have access to the council schemes, some do.
Other apartment complexes have communal composting bins for organic waste that are picked up by external providers.
If neither of these solutions are available to you, hunt for a community garden in your area. It’s likely they will run a community composting system.
External composting collection services are also available, although they often come at a higher cost and you miss out on the community engagement benefits of composting your scraps locally.
Look for a friend or family member who would treasure your organic waste.
Find someone who wants your food scraps
My compost bin processes the waste of three households. This came about because I listed my house on ShareWaste, a platform that connects people who compost with people who have organic matter. Two different households contacted me through the website and regularly drop off their scraps. As an avid composter and gardener who needs as much nutrient-rich soil as I can get, I’m the one who thanks these households for their waste, not the other way around! Although they are thankful to be able to dispose of their food waste responsibly too. Use ShareWaste to find a local compost bin to process your food scraps or find a friend or family member who would treasure your organic waste.
One of the main challenges for this compost outsourcing method is the smell that compost can develop if you don’t drop it off every day. To combat this, store your compost in the fridge or freezer. A few months ago I found myself housesitting at a home without a compost bin. Knowing a friend with room in her compost bin lived an hour away, I stored our food waste in containers and froze them for several weeks. When we were driving past her area for other reasons, we dropped off our food waste from the past month. This method really does work!
Around 50% of the average household’s bin is made up of organic matter that could be composted. If you’re interested in reducing your waste, sorting out a functional composting solution that suits your lifestyle is a great way to immediately remove half of your rubbish.
Kate Hall is one of the Herald’s lifestyle contributors. Based in Auckland she covers sustainable and conscious living and ethical consumerism.
