Scott Base’s hot composting system

Liam Ballantyne, a plant operator with the New Zealand Defence Force, demonstrates how the hot composting machine processes food waste at Scott Base.

Questions for discussion

• Why isn’t food waste composted and added to the soil in Antarctica like we do at home or with commercial organic waste in towns and cities?

• Why do you think the compost is sterilised before it is sent back to Aotearoa New Zealand?

Transcript

Voiceover

Feeding people generates waste. Food waste at Scott Base is processed and sterilised using heat in an industrial machine called a hot composter.

Liam Ballantyne

All the scraps and off-cuts go in through this machine here. All it does is pretty much just heats it up and just keeps on mixing it until it becomes a nice compost.

Voiceover

The machine quickly processes the food waste, making it more compact and removing bad smells for transportation out of Antarctica. Because the end compost is sterilised, it can be used after it is returned to New Zealand.

Acknowledgements

Liam Cunningham, New Zealand Defence Force

Footage of Scott Base hot composting machine and stills of the hot composter, dining at Scott Base and the larder, courtesy of Carol Brieseman and Dianne Christenson
Carol Brieseman and Dianne Christenson visited Antarctica with support from the Antarctica New Zealand Community Engagement Programme