Make Soil, Not Waste: Compostable Packaging in Action at Maynardville
Our year kicked off with an exciting new partnership with Maynardville Open Air Theatre.
If you haven’t been to Maynardville, it’s pretty special. Think balmy summer nights, good food and wine, and Shakespeare performed under the stars surrounded by trees.
The festival is a much-loved highlight of the Cape Town summer cultural calendar. And this year, its vibey food market went compostable.
The food trucks used plant-based, compostable food packaging. And a 3 bin system was implemented to separate waste into compostable, recyclable and general (landfill) waste streams.
The compostable food packaging and food waste collected in the compost bins were taken to Ywaste for composting, and React managed the recyclable waste component.
Turn Tragedy into Magic – and Waste into Soil
Each year, a Shakespearean play is performed at Maynardville. This year, audiences were treated to a rave reviewed production of The Tempest. According to director Silvaine Strike, The Tempest “is a story about turning tragedy into magic”.
That’s a powerful concept. How can we turn tragedy into magic?
Here at GREEN HOME, our mission is averting the serious environmental tragedies caused by plastic pollution and proliferation. And, the solution is clear: We turn tragedy into magic by working with nature.
Nature is already magical. It has the best strategies. Our work is to get in sync. We need to stop treating the environment that sustains us as an afterthought.
Here’s our solution in a nutshell:
- Use renewable, plant-based packaging materials (instead of the non-renewable fossil fuels used to make plastic)
- After use, compost them (with all the food waste – food waste doesn’t belong in landfill)
- Use the compost to return nutrients to soils (this is a big win – soils urgently need replenishing)
To Rot, or not to Rot, that is the question…
When it comes to packaging, the answer is definitely to rot. Or, more specifically, to compost. We can make soil instead of waste.
Landfills have significant negative environmental and health impacts, including air and water pollution, soil contamination, greenhouse gas emissions, and potential health risks for nearby communities.
Diverting all the organic waste – including food waste, compostable packaging and garden waste – that we currently send to landfill, would reap huge environmental benefits.
A number of composters and organisations are leading the way, showing us how we can process organic waste beneficially. One of these is Ywaste, who partnered with Master Organics, a long-time leader in the composting space, to compost the compostable waste from Maynardville.
A group of the GREEN HOME Cape Town team went to visit the compost site. Here are some pics of our walk among the steaming compost piles.
Creating Soil, not Waste
When we visited, the packaging from Maynardville had already been turned into rich, healthy, good-for-the-earth compost.
In these big piles, the process takes a matter of weeks. The piles are monitored for good moisture balance and turned regularly, which oxygenates them. The microbes that biodegrade the organic materials generate lots of heat, which is why steam is released when they’re turned. It’s amazing to see – an optimised version of the natural process that has recycled organic materials on Earth for millions of years!
Instead of waste, we have a valuable resource. When we work with Nature, it really is magical.
By choosing compostable food packaging and ensuring it was composted after the event, Maynardville not only reduced its environmental impact but actively contributed to the creation of healthy soil – not landfill waste. It’s a powerful example of how thoughtful planning and sustainable choices can transform an event into a force for good, leaving behind nothing but memories and nutrient-rich compost.