Randwick expands food scraps lead

Randwick City Council has received a grant of more than $900,000 from the New South Wales Government’s Environmental Trust to expand its food scraps collection trial to an extra 30,000 homes over the next three years.

The existing trial of 5000 homes has operated since January and collected more than 22 tonnes of food waste.

The food scraps trial was introduced in an attempt to limit the amount of general waste which goes into landfill. The initiative intends to provide householders the opportunity to turn waste into compost or biogas.

Participating householders within a unit or townhouse complex are given small kitchen caddies and biodegradable bags for their kitchen waste.

The council believes it is paying a premium to bury useful resources when food scraps are sent to landfill where disposal costs are rising.

Food scraps in landfill also produce methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

Participants are advised they can collect all food scraps including tea, coffee, dairy products, soiled paper towels or napkins, confectionery, fish and meat products.

The bags are designated for a food scraps bin to be collected separately on bin night. New bin stickers will be introduced to make the bins more prominent and help residents understand what the bins are intended for.

“So far the food waste processing trial of 5000 homes has been very successful and the expansion would mean even better sustainability outcomes,” Randwick City Mayor Scott Nash said.

“We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from residents who have participated in the food waste trial so far.”

Almost 40% of the 27,000 tonnes of general waste collected by the council from residential red-lidded rubbish bins is made up of food scraps and mostly ends up in landfill, Mr Nash said.

“We will now conduct further community consultation with local residents about the proposal to get feedback on how many residents, who live in a unit or townhouse complex, want to opt into the service.”

The programme is so far limited to about 120 blocks of multi-unit dwellings, made up of around 5000 households.

“Apartments and townhouses generally have multiple red-lidded rubbish bins and one of these bins will be converted to a dedicated kitchen food scraps collection bin,” the mayor said.

“Council is looking at options for collecting kitchen food scraps from houses without increasing the number of bins.”

The NSW Government aims to increase the recycling rate state wide for solid waste to 70% by 2021-22.

The trust’s “Waste Less Recycle More” programme supports new and innovative waste and recycling programs funded by the Waste and Environment Levy. Local government, community groups with the not-for-profit sector, plus  small to medium enterprises are funded to increase diversion of waste from landfill.