Kerbside foodscraps and NZ's first food waste-to-bioenergy facility
The 2023 launch of the Auckland-wide food scraps collection has reached a major milestone with the opening of the facility where the food scraps will be processed for beneficial reuse.
The Ecogas organics processing facility in Reporoa is the largest food scraps processing facility in NZ using advanced technology proven overseas. The facility will recover 75,000 tonnes of organic waste and produce renewable energy, biofertiliser and carbon dioxide from food scraps and other organic residues and has a 20-year contract to process Auckland’s food scraps. It will create enough energy to annually power up the equivalent of around 2,500 households in the region, produce clean bio-fertiliser for approximately 2,000 hectares of local farmland, and provide CO2 and heat to enhance the growth of tomatoes in T&G Fresh’s local glasshouse. The outcome is a carbon-neutral, circular economy solution.
Almost half the weight of a kerbside rubbish bin is organic material, and the aim is to reduce that considerably with the new kerbside pickup and processing at the Ecogas facility. This new service will complement composting, scraps like bones, citrus peel, seafood shells or onion peel that cannot go in a compost bin or worm farm can be put in your food scraps bin - basically any food scraps. Landfill is the worst place for foodscraps. Limited exposure to oxygen, microbes and bugs means it barely breaks down. Instead, it rots down creating contaminated leachate. It also produces enormous amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes disproportionately to global warming (about 25 times more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide).
The food scrap bins will be rolled out in stages. For the East Coast Bays (not including Okura/Redvale), bins will be delivered April-June 2023 and collections will start May-June 2023. For the Hibiscus Coast, bins will be provided in September-October 2023 with collections starting in October 2023. Every household will receive a lockable 23-litre food scraps bin, a kitchen caddy, and a set of Auckland Council compostable liners to get started.
The Ecogas facility in Reporoa in the Waikato will backfill otherwise empty trucks to transport the food scraps from Auckland for processing. A similar facility is planned to be built in Auckland in the future.
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