Fifteen individuals and youth groups who live along the Suva-Nausori corridor were lucky recipients of Fiji’s first ‘tumbling compost bin’.
The bins will assist families within the urban and peri-urban areas in their compost of biodegradable wastes for backyard gardening.
“Instead of throwing our kitchen wastes into garbage bags, we have to compost them.
This is distributed to urban and per-urban areas and probably will expand to the rural, but the rural, they have a lot of land mass,” said the ministry’s deputy secretary for development, Dr Tekini Nakidakida.
“For the urban backyard gardening, instead of throwing your kitchen waste to the garbage put it in the bin. Use them to fertilise the soil, grow your vegetables, so we can also reduce what is being sent to the landfills.
“There are 15 we’re giving out today and with improvements to the bin we hope that we can expand it to other farmers, especially urban and peri-urban communities.”
One of the recipients, Raijeli Tale Uluitavuki of Kilikali settlement near Nepani, said the compost bin would help her family and 54 other households in the settlement.
Kilikali settlement is part of the program organised jointly by Live and Learn Fiji and the Ministry of Agriculture to tackle nutritional challenges and non-communicable diseases.
