Organics

Vegetable growers across Australia must comply with strict requirements to ensure the food they produce is safe for consumers. Farmers purchasing compost should be asking their supplier for a proof of compliance.

The International Compost Awareness Week (ICAW), celebrated every year during the first full week of May, represents a great opportunity for joining compost related workshops, seminars and activities. Abroad and in Australia, the compost industry and enthusiasts rev up the efforts to increase awareness of the importance of compost and to promote the use of compost and related products.

Mike Ritchie will present on "Removal of food and organics from waste to landfill – prospects and issues" at ASBG's Queensland seminar in Lidcombe on 12 April 2019. Read on for the full program and to learn how to get the MRA client discount.

ABC's latest War on Waste series has recently concluded and it has been a resounding success. This year the spotlight has been turned to plastic water bottles, straws, e-waste, fast furniture, the recycling crisis and food waste. On that last front, MRA's Mike Ritchie made an appearance to talk about why we need Food and Garden Organics (FOGO) services across the nation.

At a recent meeting with Local Government Mayors and CEO’s, a claim was made that transporting organics by truck to a distant compost facility (in this case 150km away) would emit more greenhouse gases than landfilling it locally. Thinking that the carbon forcing factor of methane from landfill (25 times CO2) would render that claim incorrect, I thought I should go back and check the maths.

Australia has a significant and growing challenge in how it manages its waste. Tonnages continue to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 6.2%, six times faster than population growth, and 2.5 times faster than GDP growth. Landfill costs are increasing due to landfill levies and landfill scarcity.

By Virginia Brunton, MRA Consulting Group MRA Consulting Group (MRA) together with a working group of food safety professionals and Freshcare, revised the Food Safety and Quality (FSQ) assurance code of practice (COP) and established criteria that allowed compost, produced under the Australian standard for composts (AS4454) to be used by farmers with Freshcare certification. […]

By James Moverley, MRA Consulting Group Three bin waste systems are becoming the norm in many regions of Australia. Melbourne and Adelaide have moved quickly to standardise 3 bin systems for Food Organics and Green Organics (FOGO) services. The NSW government has funded 3 bin systems across NSW, with the biggest uptake of the NSW […]

By Virginia Brunton – Principal Consultant (Organics), MRA Consulting Group Freshcare is the fresh produce industry’s own on-farm assurance program adopted by thousands of fresh produce businesses as their key food safety program. In addition to the Food Safety and Quality (FSQ) assurance code of practice (COP) to ensure safe fruit and vegetables, Freshcare also […]

By Virginia Brunton – Principal Consultant (Organics) and Mike Ritchie – Director, MRA Consulting Group The Great Barrier Reef is exposed to increasing pressures from climate change, rising sea temperatures, ocean acidification, land-based runoff and other pressures. The summer of 2016 has been bad for the Great Barrier Reef (the Reef), one of Australia’s most […]

The new Source Separated Organics (SSO) methodology has seen tremendous uptake in the countdown to the next Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) auction. The SSO methodology provides funding to projects that divert organic waste from landfill. Twenty-seven new, expanded and/or aggregated projects under the methodology diverting source separated organics were registered by MRA Consulting Group (MRA), […]

The Source Separated Organic Waste Method has been approved and is available for use. There is still time to register a project for the next auction under this method and claim credits for your abatement effort. The next ERF auction is to be held on the 27 and 28 April 2016. To be eligible to […]