Tauranga City Council's Resource Wise Community Fund has announced this year's winners of grants.

The Resource Wise Community Fund is an annual contestable fund of $50,000, for grants ranging from $1500 to $20,000 towards projects that help reduce or divert the amount of waste that is sent to landfill.

'The Resource Wise Community Fund empowers the community to find innovative and practical alternatives to sending waste to the landfill," says Amy Brasch, Team Leader for Waste Behaviour Change Programmes at Tauranga City Council.

"We're proud to announce this year's winners and can't wait to see the difference they are able to make in the coming year,”

Seven projects were selected by a panel of judges this year, addressing waste topics ranging from waste free period education to a construction waste reduction research project.

This year's Resource Wise Community Fund projects

The number of projects to receive funding this year is an increase from five projects selected in the Resource Wise Community Fund 2018 funding round.

Last year's successful applicants completed their projects this July, they included projects such as a worm farm hire service, food rescue initiative, development of waste stations, a school chicken coop, and waste minimisation workshops for students and parents.

Vincent Callister from Waste Wizards estimates that the funding received last year helped develop enough bins to prevent 10,000 single use bin liners from being used.

'Thanks to the fund, I was able to develop and implement an idea for positive change,” says Vincent.

The next round for the Resource Wise Community Fund will open for applications in early 2020. More information on the fund and application criteria can be found at www.tauranga.govt.nz/resourcewise.