Vermicast and vermiliquid are a gardener’s best friend.
Worm farms are a fantastic way to deal with your daily food scraps and create beautiful vermicast to use in your garden.
A variety of worm farms are available for purchase either at your local hardware store or online. Vermicast and vermiliquid are a gardener’s best friend and keeping worms is a rewarding project for the whole family! Be mindful though; worm farms are fantastic but they can be a little bit complicated to look after if you don’t know the basics.
Failed worm farms are one of the more common issues we encounter in our workshops and other community events. Central Otago climate is a major issue; it is so dry and hot in summer and can drop to -1oC in winter. It may be that you have a worm farm complimented by a compost bin or Bokashi buckets as the worms hibernate somewhat in those really cold temperatures.
When feeding your worms, the smaller the food bits the better. Cut up or better still put the food scraps in a whizzer. Feed the worms in strips, tomorrow’s food placed next to today’s and so on. When you keep putting food on top of the last lot of food and so on there is a good chance it will turn putrid before the worms have a chance to get to it.
Place some damp hessian/old towel/cardboard over the worms and food to keep them cosy.
A light sprinkle of lime or dolomite over the worm farm once a month or as you remember.
Over winter they’re going to slow down. Insulate their home as best you can. Put the worm farm in the sun. Chuck an old duvet or wool blanket over the farm. Anything to keep them warm and keep the heat in.
Over winter they’re going to slow down. Insulate their home as best you can. Put the worm farm in the sun. Chuck an old duvet or wool blanket over the farm. Anything to keep them warm and keep the heat in.
Make sure you have Tiger Worms. Worms from the garden are different and dwell in the soil. Tiger worms generally reside in the compost heap, cow pattie, deep mulch.
worms love shredded paper or dried leaves too remember. By adding carbon in your worm farm it will help to ensure it doesn’t become a mucky mess.
Whether you are just starting on your composting journey or you want to improve your current composting set up, our Composting Guides will give you the knowledge to feel confident to take your composting to the next level and divert organic waste from landfill.
Kitchen scraps and garden waste make up 50% of household waste. Putting them in the landfill can be harmful as organic waste releases methane, a climate change gas. The Dr Compost project helps people in the Queenstown Lakes district to reduce their waste and feed their soil by composting at home. Dr Compost is funded by Queenstown Lakes District Council and delivered by Wastebusters.
This year our amazing Wastebusters whānau has been busy keeping everything we can out of landfill and supporting resourcefulness in our community while also working on bringing our dream of Wastebusters 2.0 into reality.
We were humbled and absolutely stoked to take home the Wānaka Chamber of Commerce Business Awards Supreme Business Award, along with the Community Contribution and Business Sustainability awards. This success was a powerful recognition of the dedicated mahi of our entire team, giving us huge confidence for the ambitious journey ahead.
We welcomed Aviette Musin on a fixed-term contract as our new Programme Manager for Wastebusters 2.0. Her expertise provided the dedicated, focused capacity needed to accelerate progress on this strategic goal.
Funding was secured through Queenstown Lakes Community Composting Project for the Compost Collect pilot, a joint venture with our neighbours Wānaka Greenwaste that will turn commercial food scraps into valuable compost, launching in 2026. We also intensified our focus on Construction and Demolition (C&D) materials, trialling diversion methodology and securing initial partnerships to divert waste from landfill. With our current site so space-constrained, we are extremely limited in the C&D materials which can be accepted for reuse, but this work will lay the groundwork for future diversion on a bigger site.
We made a compelling case to the Council for the necessary land expansion for Wastebusters 2.0 and prepared for the MfE Waste Minimisation Fund application process to support our expansion plans.
A continued focus for us this year has been on strengthening the Wastebusters whānau and ensuring we are equipped not just for the daily challenges, but for future growth. We continued to be a Living Wage employer, reflecting our commitment to the well-being and value of our staff. Feedback from the team via staff survey results highlighted strong morale and resilience within our workplace culture with 89% saying they enjoy working at Wastebusters and 93% feeling cared for by their manager.
The district’s rapid growth brings challenges as well as opportunities, particularly the Ballantyne Road/Riverbank Road roadworks which demanded flexibility and good humour from our team and customers throughout 2024. Despite the road cones, ongoing community support ensured our Reuse Shop continued to be a first choice destination for both locals and visitors. Improved donation flows and adding new changing rooms has made the shop operation smoother and more efficient for everyone.
Wastebusters’ partnership with events continues to go from strength to strength: including the trial of a food scraps collection from vendors. And our Recycle team did the huge job of relabeling all our events recycling bins to align with national recycling colours, making it easier for event-goers to know what to do. Wastebusters recycling trucks continue to be a much-loved presence in town servicing our 408 business customers, with the team doing a great job of keeping our aging fleet serviceable, in line with our kaupapa of keeping resources in use for as long as possible.
Our Reduce team has continued to deliver exceptional impact, with more than 11,000 people engaged in person through our education and engagement in the community. The Resourceful Communities programme inspires our community to take action and builds the knowledge and know how to engage in areas like repair, low waste living and textile waste diversion. It is proudly supported by QLDC’s zero waste district’s programme which recognises the impact of community connection for zero waste action.
We were stoked to join Environment Hubs Aotearoa, and we look forward to collaborating with this network and amplifying our collective impact on environmental action and resourcefulness across Aotearoa.
We worked with an impact consultant to implement an evaluation framework and behaviour change model to better plan, deliver and measure our impact, and have begun rolling out our learnings across all our programmes.
It was a busy year in advocacy, starting with participation in QLDC’s Waste Management and Minimisation Plan process. We appreciated QLDC’s approach in bringing Wastebusters and other stakeholders in early in the process, which has resulted in a constructive plan for the next six years. Wastebusters has also made submissions on national and local level, including The Right to Repair Bill, the Container Return Scheme and the publicly notified resource consent for McDonald’s in Wānaka.
Ultimately, this year has been about delivering impact while building the foundations for a much larger and even more impactful operation, securing Wastebusters’ future for our community. The heart of our work remains resource recovery and community engagement, and we enter the next 25 years of zero waste leadership with great confidence, welcome community support and an unwavering focus.
Gina Dempster
General Manager
November 2025
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