Tasman District Council > Waste Education Services

Almost half of the average household rubbish bag contains garden and organic food waste. When deposited in landfill this produces methane and leachate which can pollute local waterways and soil. It is easy to use the goodness from these materials to improve your soil, grow healthier vegetables etc, and improve the environment.

Create your own Eden is a national programme where you can find all the detail you need to know on how to make great compost, improve your soil and produce fantastic fertilisers for your plants, veggies and garden all for free. The site covers traditional composting using a heap or bin, vermiculture or worm farming, and Bokashi.

Tasman District Council is a partner in Create Your Own Eden, a collection of other local Councils, including Nelson City, that have joined together to spread the word about the many benefits of home composting.

Visit the Create Your Own Eden website

Create Your Own Eden at the A&P shows

Tasman District Council will be promoting the Create Your Own national programme to promote home composting at the A&P shows this summer as part of the Waste Education Services stand. These shows are in:

• Richmond – 21 & 22 November 2009 (also supported by Nelson City Council)
• Motueka – 6 December 2009
• Takaka – 16 January 2010

Tasman District Council will also be offering a programme of free Create Your Own Eden workshops and roadshows starting in autumn 2010.
Further information on local facilities to handle these resources are detailed below:

Green Waste

Green waste can be composted at home. More information on how you can do this is available here. Alternatively you can take your waste to the following places: (it’s cheaper per volume to take your greenwaste to these sites than to dispose of it as general rubbish at the Resource Recovery Centres)
- Greenwaste to Zero Richmond
- Resource Recovery Centres at Mariri, Takaka and Collingwood
- Nelson City Council Transfer Station Tahunanui
- Wholesale Landscapes Stoke
Charges apply to all centres. Flax leaves, toitoi, bamboo or palm leaves are ONLY accepted at Wholesale Landscapes.

About Waste Disposal can provide food and/or green waste services to businesses and households.

Bingo Skip Hire, Motueka Bin Hire and Scott’s HIR-A-BIN Motueka will provide bins and skips and, if they contain green waste only, they will deposit them to the green waste disposal areas of the Resource Recovery Centres.

Contact Details

Resource Recovery Centres (RRCs)
Mariri - Robinson Road, Ph (03) 526 7896
Takaka - Scotts Road, Ph (03) 525 8857
Collingwood - Bainham-Collingwood Road, Ph 021 543 903

Nelson City Council Transfer Station Vivian Place, Ph (03) 548 5760
About Waste Disposal Richmond, Ph (03) 544 2752
Bingo Skip Hire Motueka, Ph (03) 528 0000
Greenwaste to Zero 18 Cargill Place (off Beach Rd), Richmond, Ph (03) 544 8857
Motueka Bin Hire Motueka, Ph (03) 528 9346
Scott’s HIR-A-BIN Motueka, Ph (03) 528 8727
Wholesale Landscapes Stoke, Ph (03) 547 5300

Food Waste

Vegetable and fruit scraps can be composted at home along with your green waste. Details on how you can do this are available here. These scraps can also be fed to a worm farm and you can find more details on worm farms at here.

All food waste, including meat, fish, vegetables, processed foods etc. can be composted via the Bokashi system. Bokashi is composting using Effective Micro-organisms (EM) that work to ferment the organic material. Bokashi is a Japanese word meaning ‘fermented organic matter’. The EM are in a wheat-bran/sawdust base and sealed in a bag. The final product has a sweet/sour smell. Details on how this system works are available below.

Compost

Click here to go to the Compost section.

Worm farms

Click here to go to the Worm Farm section.

Bokashi

Click here to go to the Bokashi section.