Eddie The Head

5.4.1 The reasons offered by the home composters for practising home

composting

As illustrated in Table 21, the major reasons given by the home composters for composting fell under the environmental, gardening/agricultural and economic categories. Several factors may have accounted for a large proportion of home composters offering their reasons for composting in these categories. These factors include the promotional activities and waste minimisation initiatives undertaken by the Council and compost bin manufacturers, which may have shaped local perspective on home composting. An example of the former is the composting guide provided by the PNCC, which outlines the benefits of home composting. The benefits outlined by the composting guide are mostly related to the environment, cost, and gardening. Therefore, through these mechanisms, the households may have become aware of the

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importance of practising home composting, which reflected in their reasons for taking

up home composting.

Manufacturers of compost bins also publish advertising information on the importance of home composting on their websites. A typical example is the Earthmaker bin manufacturer’s website (Earthmaker, n.d). Other locally available environmental publications (such as the ‘Square Circular’), zero waste education programme (as discussed in Section 1.1.3) and initiatives of environmental organisations like the

Environment Network Manawatuw _{may have also encouraged households in the City to}

become more aware of the importance of composting as part of demonstrating environmental responsibility.

5.4.2 The reasons offered by the non-home composters for not practising

home composting

Most of the non-home composters couched their reasons for not composting in their dwelling type, which is living in rental accommodation or having small sections (Table 22). This result was comparable to the study carried out by Mustapha (2013) in Canada where over 50% of households in detached or single dwellings stated that they compost their kitchen waste, as compared to 22% of households living in apartments. In New Zealand, living in apartments/rental accommodation usually correlates to not having a garden (J. Hannon, personal communication, May 18, 2017). Concerning this issue in New Zealand, it can be observed from Table 22 that “no garden” formed a second common reason for not composting. Tucker et al. (2003) also stated that gardening interest, gardening activity, and garden size are highly connected with home composting behaviour, which might explain why a substantial proportion of the non-home composters couched their reasons for not composting in not owning a garden.

Additionally, ‘old age’ and ‘health’ formed part of the most frequent reasons offered for

not composting (Table 22). Although these group of non-home composters were not

assessed on how they manage their organic waste, the establishment of a kerbside

w_{A coordinating organisation and network that encourages and fosters environmental}

107 organic collection/food waste drop-off facility in the City could be a possible method to encourage them to divert their organic waste into beneficial uses. This is because the organic waste collected by kerbside services will eventually be composted at the commercial composting site, rather than ending up in the household rubbish bag/bin and going to landfill.

In addition, the non-home composters who mentioned that they find it more convenient to dispose of their organic waste in the rubbish bin for landfill (Table 22) can potentially be encouraged by future PNCC educational/promotional materials/media to send their organic waste to the commercial composting site. However, it may be that they do not have vehicles or find it expensive to hire a vehicle/trailer to drop-off their garden waste at the commercial composting site. This is because the fees charged at the site depend on the vehicle/trailer type conveying the organic waste material (PNCC, 2016a). Whilst pricing incentives do exist to encourage organic recycling, possibly these can be re- examined and revised to be more effective. However, even if cost-conscious members of the community are encouraged and incentivised to send their garden waste to the commercial composting site, they may continue to dispose of their food waste in the rubbish bags for the landfill. This is because as stated earlier in Section 1.1.3.1.1, the commercial composting site does not accept food waste. These service and infrastructural issues appear to be a clear barrier to increasing PNCC organic waste diversion from landfill. The current absence of a general food waste composting capacity links to the absence of a kerbside organic collection (or other alternative community- based food waste drop-off facility) offered by PNCC. Such factors could also be a possible reason why some members of the community find the use of the rubbish bin/landfill convenient for the disposal of organic waste.

Another reason for non-composting that emerged was that it was more convenient to buy commercial compost. A possible reason for this may be the combination of people living in small sections, but owning and being interested in gardens. It may be that, in such situations, people assume that home composting will require too much space, therefore, it is more convenient to buy commercial compost. In contrast to this perception, during the home visits, it was discovered that some home composters lived in small sections but still composted. It could, therefore, be a mere perception that

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practising home composting on small sections is impossible. Moreover, some compost bins are now advertised as being specifically designed for small sections which allow home composting in small spaces (Rynk & Colt, 1997).

Based on the various reasons given by the non-home composters for not composting, it appears that there is an opportunity for PNCC to establish a kerbside organic collection/food waste drop-off facility in the City, which would allow composting of organic waste on a commercial scale. Such a programme will lead to a significant increase in the waste diversion rate of the City. However, any future intervention through PNCC organic recycling programme will need to reconcile factors such as the relative convenience and cost, as well as other behavioural, educational and attitudinal considerations.

5.5 Home composting operational schemes and accompanying