Organics

A response to Sam Bateman’s “Is landfill part of the circular economy?”

The NSW Waste and Sustainable Materials Strategy 2041: (Stage 1 – 2021-2027) has endorsed diversion of organic waste from landfill to deliver substantive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from NSW landfills.

MRA recently completed a trial application of pelletised compost down the tube of an airseeder. Results show an increase in crop yield and profit per hectare.

Once more, MRA made its presence felt at the Coffs Waste conference.

More and more councils now collect FOGO at the kerbside. Will three bins become the new standard?

The single biggest greenhouse gas emissions decision you will make as Mayor, is “Are we still sending organic waste to landfill?”

There is only one technology that we know of that can reliably suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sequester it. Photosynthesis. It is what every plant on the planet does every day.

Landfilled organics result to significant GHG emissions and a waste of valuable nutrients. Banning the landfilling of household and commercial food and garden waste would stimulate jobs growth, divert millions of tonnes from landfill, generate compost, sequester carbon in soils and reduce Australia's GHG footprint.

The NSW DPIE conducted an excellent review of FOGO performance across 34 Councils in NSW. Average performance is a poor indicator of the trends in FOGO so Mike Ritchie, re-analysed the data to look at individual Council performance and summarised his findings in an informative article.

Following up on Virginia Brunton's well received "Where to with food waste" article, Mike Ritchie discusses FOGO in MUDs. Mike argues that collecting FOGO from MUDs is not just feasible, it is necessary. Getting food and garden waste out of all households will: - reduce #waste to #landfill by 50% or more - save up to 2.7% of Australia’s GHG emissions and - produce millions of tonnes of soil enhancing compost.

The WA Waste Authority is providing $20m to local governments over the next 6 years to implement a three-bin FOGO kerbside service.

Sustainability Victoria recently opened the Bioenergy Infrastructure Fund grants offering a total of $750,000 in funding for government organisations (including state, local and federal), community organisations, businesses and social enterprises over two streams; Infrastructure and Business case or feasibility/technical study.