MORE than half a million tonnes of food and garden waste will be diverted from Melbourne landfills to a new composting facility as part of a deal with 13 councils including Kingston and Frankston from early next year.
The state government announced last week that eight south-east councils have agreed to collect and process organic waste for recycling into compost.
Kingston, Frankston, Bayside, Cardinia, Casey, Glen Eira, Greater Dandenong and Monash councils in the south east have signed deals with Veolia Environment Services.
Knox, Manningham, Maroondah, Whitehorse and Yarra Ranges in Melbourne’s east are also onboard.
Veolia will recycle the waste at its existing Dandenong North facility.
Victorian Energy, Environment and Climate Change Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the contracts will help meet a Metropolitan Waste and Resource Recovery Implementation Plan of processing 4,000,000 tonnes of organics each year by 2021.
She said councils will be able to offer or increase food waste collections.
Kingston Council city assets and environment general manager Daniel Freer said vegetable scraps will be able to be put in garden waste bins to be recycled into “high-quality” compost.
“It is estimated that the average rubbish bin includes up to 35 per cent food waste so this will be a fantastic way to divert vegetable material from landfill and free up some space in your rubbish bin,” he said.
“We hope to have this service up and running by the end of the year and we will be providing further details in the coming months.”
Ms D’Ambrosio said businesses and industry will also be able to redirect commercial food waste.
A new composting factory will also be built by the Sacyr group in Dandenong South and will open in mid-2019.
The state government said diverting food and garden waste from landfills means methane produced during decomposition is not released into the atmosphere as a major greenhouse gas.
Melbourne’s waste is predicted to grow from 10.4 million tonnes each year to 16.5 million tonnes by 2042.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 29 March 2017
