The first trial took place across three large public events in February 2017. The three events included two Council-produced public events - Sparks and Christchurch Lantern Festival - and one partnership trial event with Christchurch Night Noodle Markets.
Before this initiative, all waste from events was most likely sent to landfill. There was no composting stream available citywide for events and even if there were yellow bins at an event, the recycling was too contaminated to be accepted unless hand sorted.
The three events had an estimated 190,000 attendees between them and diverted 12 tonnes of waste – which amounted to a total of 61% of all the waste generated from the three trial events.
Composting Food Packaging at Events (CFPE) - Trial 1.0 summary [PDF, 1.1 MB]