Testimonials

For the Love of Bees is a collaboration platform working with individuals, communities and business who share a vision and are committed to regenerating our soils and environment, and leaving a safe and beautiful legacy for those generations who will follow us. We believe that in order to have a serious impact on climate change that we need to maximise photosynthesis opportunities on all available surfaces.

To that end we have established an urban farm, local living compost hubs, pasture paintings to support pollinators and a farmers alliance. Compost from local food and other organic residues on-site or at the compost hubs is a critical part of these regenerative growing activities, and New Zealand Box has collaborated with us since 2016 by providing CarbonCycle composters and supervising the collection of organic residues, as well as managing the necessary composting activity. The CarbonCycle composters are ideal for composting in these urban environments because they are attractive, vermin proof, allow great access to the compost heap and make it clean and easy to turn large volumes of compost.

Richard shares our vision and, aside from the composting infrastructure and activity, he has been of great assistance in helping with education and guidance for us. Our work also involves making presentations and advocating for a regenerative future to Councils, local boards and others. He has contributed his knowledge and energy to assisting us in this important work.  We plan to keep working with the CarbonCycle team for a long time to come.

Sarah Smuts-Kennedy
Visionholder
For the Love of Bees

I write this recommendation as the head farmer of OMG – an urban farm in Uptown Auckland. Over the past two years I have worked with Richard and Tim to take in local food waste and turn it into compost to fuel the soil life and grow healthy vegetables.

In the beginning we had a substantial rat problem because of poor compost management, but since their boxes have been in use the rats have completely disappeared. Their substantial size allows for a very large volume of compost to be produced in a very manageable way.

They are a wonderful tool to create beautiful living compost at substantial quantities without the use of machinery. They also look very beautiful.

Levi Brinsdon-Hall
Head Farmer
OMG, Organic Market Garden

I run Compost Co. under the Waiheke Resources Trust. We are now in our third year of collecting commercial food waste from local restaurants and community groups for composting. We also support zero waste events and coffee shops by taking their compostable packaging including PLA products.  Compost Co. is committed to keeping food waste out of landfill. We currently process about 20T of food waste per year and are hoping to grow this to ensure no food waste is leaving Waiheke Island. We believe in transforming this waste stream into a valuable living resource to replenish our local soils to enable more community food production.

We have 12 CarbonCycle composters set up as 2 systems of 6 joined boxes. In one system we have been running a hot compost to process the PLA and compostable packaging (as this requires high temperatures), and the other system is being used for anaerobic bokashi composting prior to aerobic maturing.

The joined compost boxes allow easy turning between boxes with no organic matter spilling out. The easy to remove slats are extremely helpful with the turning process, as the sides of the box can be taken right down and built up as suits.  The 1.5mC volume of the box allows temperatures to build up when there is sufficient volume.  Hot composting speeds up the time it takes to produce compost from raw materials and also enables pasteurization of the food waste to kill off any pathogens to produce a safe product for use. These boxes are rodent proof, which means no restrictions when it comes to meat waste and other such items people may otherwise avoid putting in. The aluminium framing means that this product is durable and also able to be relocated easily to a new site if necessary.

I have thoroughly enjoyed using these compost boxes and would definitely recommend the product.

Prashanti Lovegrove
Compost Co. Project Manager
Compost Collective Educator
Waiheke Resources Trust

At Dignan Street Community Garden we have been using two NZ boxes since 2017 and because of their design, we have processed over 20 tonnes of food scraps from our local Countdown supermarket. They make our workflow very efficient with the flexibility of taking off any and all sides for turning and processing. The wooden slats fit so firmly which allows the hot temperatures needed for the thermophilic phase to pasteurise the compost pile. And after 3 years they are still looking great and keeping the smells in and the rats out. We can’t recommend their product highly enough.

Richard and Tim have been such a great support for us over the years. They are always generous in giving advice when we meet challenges and keeping us informed as they research best practices. Their support has enabled us to produce a high quality compost and process more efficiently.

In 2018 I did a Fulbright artist residency in San Francisco, I wanted the residency to be low carbon. I felt comfortable about that because my composting activities, coupled with growing nutrient dense food in our community and sequestering carbon into our soil, well offset the 4.2 tonnes of CO2 emissions of the return flights.

Making compost gives me hope and makes me happy. I know I’m regenerating soil, sequestering carbon, building community and creating climate change ready infrastructure.

Rebecca Swan
Artist and Gardener
Dignan Street Community Garden

If you want to contribute more to our planet, and increase your positive impact, the one thing you should be doing is composting. If you are wanting to start composting, or improve your current compost and do it properly, then there is one company you should deal with, CarbonCycle Compost.

I have never met anyone as knowledgeable and dedicated to their craft as Richard and the team. We are now using multiple boxes in multiple different settings, from urban farms to inner city environments. This would not have been possible without CarbonCycle and their incredible boxes. Not only do they produce the best compost I have ever seen, but they happen to look beautiful while they do it.

Jayden Klinac
Founder
For the Better Good

Resilient Russell

Resilient Russell Charitable Trust manages zero waste events in the Bay of Islands. In this work we needed a composting system that could deal with compostable cups and packaging. We also wanted to keep the compost in our community as part of our vision of a resilient Russell. The CarbonCycle composters were a perfect solution. We like their simplicity, efficiency and ease of operation.

Richard is highly motivated to normalise home and community composting and make it widely accessible. We certainly appreciate the energy, know-how and support he has given us in our composting journey.

John Maxwell
Chairman
Resilient Russell