It's been 12 months since we introduced the new food waste recycling service to households in Monash!
Since introducing food waste recycling in July 2020, we have seen a decrease in the amount of waste sent to landfill from households. Thank you for recycling food scraps with your garden waste.
What happens to your food and garden waste?
Food and garden waste is taken to a composting facility in Dandenong, Victoria where it is processed and turned into compost, ready for use on farms and gardens.
Watch the below video to see how compost is helping farmers to grow food:
Note: Food and garden waste from Monash households is taken to a different composting facility than the one shown in the video, however the composting process is similar.
It's important to only put accepted items in your food and garden waste bin. This helps ensure farmers can use high quality compost on their farms and vineyards to grow food.
For a list of accepted items see: What can go in your food and garden waste bin
Helpful tip: Lining your caddy
You can line your caddy to wrap or bag food. This can help reduce smells and keep your caddy and food and garden waste bin clean. To line your caddy, you could use:
- Paper towel
- 1-2 sheets of newspaper
- Certified compostable liners
Certified compostable liners can be purchased from major supermarkets or select online stores. Compostable liners must have this logo:
For a list of places to buy compostable liners see: Lining Your Caddy
Resident spotlight: Your food waste recycling journey
We recently invited residents to tell us about their first 12 months of recycling food waste. Here's what some of them shared with us:
- Recycling food scraps is a great habit to get in to. We now only have one, maybe two, small bags of rubbish in our red bin each week – Dell, Mt Waverley
- It's easy to recycle food scraps and it's better than sending them to landfill. I feel I have contributed to the Green movement – Udesh, Wheelers Hill
- Initially, I had to keep checking what could go in the caddy and remind other household members what should go in. During summer, insects can be a problem inside the big green bin but mixing food scraps with garden waste and sprinkling soda bicarbonate helps – Lynne, Wheelers Hill
- My red bin is 90% empty with very little effort on my part. Being able to recycle food waste makes you feel good, knowing that you are sending less to landfill – Lorraine, East Oakleigh
- I was a bit dubious at first about how it would work, but everyone should give it a go. We compost most of our vegetable waste at home and use the green bin for meat scraps and bones. To prevent the scraps going off over the two weeks, we refrigerate them in small containers until collection day – Neville, Mt Waverley
We'd love to hear how your food waste recycling journey is going.
Share your experiences recycling food waste
