food waste - need help with some research

[Lotte]

Boring thread I know, but I'm trying to put a proposal to my council together about the lack of food waste options for residents in my area.
Where I grew up (which is a backwards hell hole to be honest), if you don't put your food waste in the organics bin, some old man will shake his jowels at you angrily or some other such punishment.
Where I'm living now, food waste HAS to go in your rubbish bin, if you don't have a compost bin or similar. Now, I rent, and the house is going to be demolished, so I'm not setting up a compost bin so it can all end up on landfill in six months anyway. Our green bin is solely for garden waste, and I, personally believe it's stupid. I have a bokashi bin myself, and a lot of my food scraps go to my furry compost bins (aka guinea pigs), but I know a lot of people aren't in the position for one or both of these options.
So, I'm looking for examples of areas that have food waste programs, extra points if your area has a community garden or something where food waste is used to create local food, so I can put together a pretty compelling proposal to my own council members. Feel free to inbox me if you don't want people knowing which council boundary you belong to out something.
Also, if you have any ideas for other waste reduction programs or activities, that would be great!
Thanks in advance guys!

[GasoLane]

Food waste here has to go in the 'normal' rubbish bin.

We have 3 Wheelie bins.

One for Green Waste...grass, prunings etc.
One for Recyclables...Plastics, paper etc
and one for the rest of the stuff we throw out.

I assume that your 'organics' bin is the Green bin? here our green waste gets mulched and sold back as......er......mulch

I don't think the health dept would like all food scraps, and associated bacteria, mixed with stuff people put on their garden.

[Lotte]

That's how my council works yeah.

Mum's has an organics bin, as opposed to a green bin, and I think they compost down the waste, rather than mulch it and sell it back as compost

[poppa smurf]

well we have the same system, 3 bins.......yellow, red and green.

organics never leave our house garden, everything is recycled........food waste is almost non existent as we shop only for what we need. I was a child growing up in the outback during hard times, never missed out but we learned the value of things, reuse, recycle and don't waste.

what really gripes me is plastic. some gets recycled but a lot doesn't........I wish they would stop producing the damn stuff.

no ideas on what you could do Lotte, but thanks for caring.

[supershifty]

I'm Brisbane city council. We get two bins, one for recyclables and one for everything else. There is an option for a green waste bin for an extra cost, there's no option for food waste - it goes in the general bin.

Alike poppa, I'm careful about what packaging my purchases come in to reduce landfill. Not much food gets wasted in my household, none actually. The only food waste is vegetable/fruit skins, as there's only two of us there's not even much of that. As I own the home I picked up a compost bin from the sales at the local tip and put it in a corner of the back yard.

As a cheap alternative for you, buy one of those round 60 litre rubbish bins with a lid from Bunnings or the like, cut the bottom out of it with a jigsaw (so the worms and other critters can get in) and stick it in your garden bed. Cheap solution and you can take it with you when you leave. As it mulches down, just lift it up and move it, then spread the compost out. The only things not to put in are meat or citrus peels. I occasionally shred some newspaper up and stir that through the mix with a garden fork as it's composting down.

Good luck fighting your local council though!

Cheers!

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by supershifty

I'm Brisbane city council. We get two bins, one for recyclables and one for everything else. There is an option for a green waste bin for an extra cost, there's no option for food waste - it goes in the general bin.

Alike poppa, I'm careful about what packaging my purchases come in to reduce landfill. Not much food gets wasted in my household, none actually. The only food waste is vegetable/fruit skins, as there's only two of us there's not even much of that. As I own the home I picked up a compost bin from the sales at the local tip and put it in a corner of the back yard.

As a cheap alternative for you, buy one of those round 60 litre rubbish bins with a lid from Bunnings or the like, cut the bottom out of it with a jigsaw (so the worms and other critters can get in) and stick it in your garden bed. Cheap solution and you can take it with you when you leave. As it mulches down, just lift it up and move it, then spread the compost out. The only things not to put in are meat or citrus peels. I occasionally shred some newspaper up and stir that through the mix with a garden fork as it's composting down.

Good luck fighting your local council though!

Cheers!

image

I bought one of those bins when they banned washing cars using high pressure washers from taps in Vic. You could only use buckets.

They sold an attachment for karcher to suck water out of a bucket, so id fill the bin up from the tap and have it feeding my karcher out of it lol.

[danzvtil]

I used to be the gardener for a guy who owned a rubbish removal company and associated landfill, ANYTHING organic he would get me to dig a hole in the garden and bury-old food, off meat, kitchen scraps, all minus plastic wrap of course. His reasoning was that all that gear in his general waste bin would fill his landfill quickly and generate much more methane gas than dry goods.

[Itsme]

Far as I'm concerned food waste should be put in your own garden compost, bit unfortunate for those who live in flats.