Composting & Waste Streams

Compostable packaging waste can integrate into the organic waste system producing nutrient rich fertiliser from the composting process. We’ve partnered with First Mile to collect and compost everything from decent cups and cutlery, to decent takeaway lunch boxes. The packaging is put into an autoclave which is similar to a very high temperature pressure cooker. This process expedites the breaking down of the compostable packaging materials, and then these materials go through the standard Anaerobic Digestion process (usually used for food), which produces fertiliser, and the methane produced during the decomposition process is burned to produce green energy.

We are proud to be a Toitū carbonzeroCertTM certified organisation. This means we have completed three key steps. Through data analysis and helpful online tools, we measured the emissions from our organisation's activities - this includes everything from shipping our orders, to driving our delivery vans, even our flights to the UK so we could set up Decent Packaging. We then set targets to reduce our total emissions, along with our emissions per carton sold. We are a growing company, so proportional emissions are important, but we are shooting for a total reduction year-on-year, because if not now, when?... and if not us, who? For the third step, Toitū Envirocare help us offset all of our unavoidable emissions through buying carbon credits in New Zealand and Asia - supporting forest growing projects and solar panel programs which are certified to capture carbon and therefore bring our net emissions down to zero!