August 31, 2022 • 20 mins
50,000 properties in Kingston are now recycling food scraps with their garden waste. But why? And where does it all go? And what exactly can, and can’t go in our green-lidded bins?
We’re talking all things food waste recycling on the City of Kingston’s new waste podcast. Learn more about food waste recycling in Kingston.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Welcome to Trash talk,
the world's trashiest podcast where we sort through your waste and recycling.
Hello,
everybody and welcome to Trash Talk podcast.
(00:25):
I'm Freya Kingston Council's Waste Education Officer.
And here with me today is jokes.
Um And we're gonna be discussing all things trash.
So talking lots of rubbish today,
we're talking all about that food and garden waste bin.
So your green bin that you have at home.
So let's get into the nitty gritty details.
(00:47):
So City Kingston is doing pretty well with our food and garden waste at the moment.
Uh We are composting just over 20,000 tons of food and garden waste each year.
Um And it's great to see that 49,000 properties have received a caddy and compostible liner um Last year as a part of this new food,
food and garden rollout,
which is really,
(01:07):
really great to see.
Um Another positive is that we've had an extra 1000 households sign up for a new green bin as well.
So it's really good to see that great uptake and to add to that just as a,
a one year on uh sort of thing.
Uh We've had an extra 4000 tons of extra food and garden waste material composted this year compared to last year.
(01:30):
So that's almost two Olympic swimming pools of material that we're getting out of our land fill landfill bin or our rubbish bin and composting it and turning it into a great um usable resource.
That's awesome.
That's really good.
And,
and the really exciting thing as well to see is that our contamination is also very low,
which means that we're putting generally all the right things in.
(01:52):
So it's really good,
good work.
So keep up the great work,
Kingston.
And let's keep working um to help reduce our goals of sending very little rubbish to landfill.
Alright.
So what is this all about?
What is this food and garden waste bin all about jules?
Well,
the idea is that we can take those resources,
(02:14):
as you said from what was traditionally going in our red littered bin and bringing that over and actually turning it into a resource.
So we want to see things like your garden waste as you've normally been doing for a long time.
But now all of your food waste as well.
And when I say all your food waste,
I mean,
all of it,
I mean,
eat what you get.
(02:34):
Yeah,
don't,
you know,
buy unnecessarily,
we still want to avoid making waste in the first place but scraps unavoidable waste like carrot,
peels potatoes.
Exactly.
Yeah,
chopped bones,
things like that.
Cool.
So,
so what sort of uh food waste can now go in?
So originally we just had it as a garden clipping or a garden waste bin.
(02:58):
And so now we can add in all of that food waste.
So it's your meat,
your bones,
your dairy,
all those different items can,
can go in which will go into a bit more detail a bit further on.
But one of the reasons is why,
why is council doing this?
Well,
yeah,
yeah.
So the reason is that 37% of the contents of the red bin has been organic waste.
(03:22):
So food scraps.
Yeah,
it's all the food scraps and you know,
up until this point that is how we managed it.
But things have changed.
We now have the Fogo Service,
Food Organics.
Garden Organics is the longer version of that one.
But now we can put that in the green litter bin.
And as well as that,
(03:42):
um we have had 37% of food waste,
but we've had a fair bit of garden waste on top of that,
that has been going into that rubbish bin.
So it's really important that we capture both that food waste and the garden waste and try and get that going into that green litter bin for composting.
Um But one of the other effects of having our food waste in our landfill bin is that food waste is the biggest producer of methane gas and now methane gas as we've talked about in previous episodes isn't very good for our environment.
(04:11):
It's,
it's very,
very toxic.
It's just,
it's just really important just to stop it in general.
And the best way to stop creating methane gas um is by getting our food waste and composting it um appropriately and making sure that that methane is not released from it.
Um because it's getting turned into compost.
So,
so to manage that methane in landfills,
(04:33):
we've talked about on a previous episode depending on the landfill.
If it's a new one,
they'll purpose build facilities to capture that methane and to burn it and generate electricity.
So it's not just going into the atmosphere of raw methane,
but I know some landfills around the country have been retrofitted with that technology that can capture the vast majority of it,
(04:55):
but not all of it.
So,
yeah,
like we've said,
we really want to push that waste into the green bin.
So it gets composted.
And during that process because it's in an aerobic environment,
meaning it has oxygen freely available,
it can break down without producing vast quantities of methane,
(05:15):
far less than it would in a landfill.
Yeah.
Yeah,
exactly.
And,
and by doing the simple thing of,
you know,
rather than putting your making that decision of putting your food waste in that rubbish bin at home by putting it into your compost caddy that you may have received um all the,
all the liners or putting it into the green bin.
It,
it's just a very simple thing that you can do at home.
That makes such a huge difference overall as well.
(05:36):
And you don't have to use the council caddy.
You can use ice cream tub if you want.
Um,
you can use the,
the caddy and that's what it was there for,
to help and encourage residents to use it.
But you don't have to,
you can get creative and,
and use things around the house as well.
Um Or you can just have the liners sitting on the bench but just be mindful that those compostible liners um that we have provided to help with that,
(05:59):
you know,
capturing that food waste and going into the green bin is designed to break down after a couple of days.
So the idea is that it's not supposed to sit in your caddy for a week because the,
the the liner will start breaking down and splitting.
So very important that you are emptying your caddy regularly every couple of days um to help stop it from splitting.
(06:20):
Um So on the on the compostible liners,
we might as well chat about it.
Now while we're,
while we're chatting about them is,
you know,
can we put any compostible liner or biodegradable liner or plastic bag in our green bin?
So not any old liner.
It needs to specifically have um a little seedling logo.
(06:40):
So it's like a little sprouting seed that has a loop,
sort of has its root system.
Uh If you see that symbol on the bag at a supermarket or anywhere else,
um,
that's what we're looking for.
If it has that we know it's compostible,
not biodegradable,
they're very different terms.
It can be a bit confusing,
but look for that symbol.
(07:02):
That's what we want to see.
It generally have like a,
an Australian standard,
like an A S number,
um letters and some numbers next to it as well.
But yeah,
it is very confusing because there's a lot of companies now creating degradable bags which people are thinking is compostible,
but they're,
they're not able to be composted.
So please make sure you've got um you purchase new liners with this seedling logo or to make it easier come down,
(07:25):
feel free to pick a free roll up from the customer care desk at uh the Cheltenham Council office.
Um Just make sure you've got some ID.
Um and Council will give you another roll of liners as well just to help encourage everyone to do the right thing.
But again,
on the liners,
if you don't want to use them,
that's fine too.
You're more than welcome to put your food scraps into your garden bin loose.
(07:46):
Um And this is where it gets a bit complicated in earlier resources.
We did say you're allowed paper and newspaper and paper towel in the green bin.
We only want it in small amounts So one or two sheets to cover up the bones or the food scraps.
And that's just to help to absorb any moisture and things like that.
Um,
(08:06):
in your green bin,
I do recommend if you're putting your food waste in your green bin loose to cover it over with some garden waste as well and that will just help protect it.
Um,
and yeah,
and keep it nice and covered and cool and things like that.
So,
but yeah,
when it comes to liners,
just keep an eye out for the seedling um and just watch out for the biodegradable wording on packaging.
(08:27):
Um and,
and plastic bags because they,
they are plastic bags,
they're not um compostible liners,
which is what council are after.
Alrighty.
So whereabouts does our food and garden waste go?
Well,
the city of Kingston sends all of their um fruit,
the food and garden waste trucks to a facility in Dandenong South where it is processed.
(08:47):
Um And what happens to that material jules.
So basically it'll get dumped into a big concrete bunker or uh container and it'll be sat there man managing the temperature and the oxygen to help those organisms that exist in the garden waste and food waste start to break things down and it'll sit there for three days or so.
(09:14):
A couple of days.
Yeah.
And it almost looks a bit like a shipping container sort of thing.
Yeah.
And once it's gone through the three day waiting period.
It will then be moved out of there for new product to come in and it will be put outside or into what's called a Winrow where basically this super cool machine,
(09:36):
it's awesome.
It almost looks like a spider.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah,
I think of it like a,
a transformer.
Yeah.
So it,
it's sort of a horseshoe shape and it has a little,
um,
cavity for the driver to get in.
And once he's in,
it lifts up above the machine and it has a big barrel with these big um uh almost like blades or just paddles on this big uh circular thingy.
(10:05):
My very scientific but,
and he basically drives over the garden,
waste out the compost at this point and it just turns the whole thing over and makes a big row of waste.
That's why we call it a windrow and they just turn that over every once in a while to make sure it's all getting mixed up.
(10:25):
It's breaking down.
Well,
and it's getting lots of oxygen.
Yeah.
And,
and in a,
in a couple of weeks,
you have some very lovely high quality finish compost,
which is fantastic to see.
So um I do,
we will be running tours to this facility,
hopefully.
Um Now that we restrictions are finishing up and ending,
(10:45):
which is good.
Um So if you are interested in coming along and seeing this super cool,
I call the spider,
but um the the cool technology at this facility.
Um Please feel free to sign up to the uh sustainability E news letter which is on Council's website.
Uh because that's where we advertise all of our workshops and everything.
But yeah,
very,
(11:05):
very cool facility.
Uh And forgot to mention that this facility is in Dandenong South.
So it's really close by as well,
which is good.
So we're not sending our materials too far away.
So the finished product as well.
Um Before we jump into what can and can't um the finished product from,
from that facility,
that Jill was just talking about.
Where does it go?
(11:26):
It,
what,
what,
what did we do with it?
So it goes back into the environment,
it goes back on to parks and gardens,
garden beds and councils,
sporting fields,
all those and,
and even farmers take it as well.
So farmers can um spread it amongst their crops and things like that.
We do have a couple of little farms um actually within the Kingston area and close to metro Melbourne that are taking this uh finished compost,
(11:52):
which is really good to see.
So we're helping to close the loop and keep it all local as well.
Yeah.
So by recycling,
right,
with the green bin,
you're really helping the farmers,
you know,
make sure you put the right things in so they can grow their crops and not have to deal with any contaminants or things like that.
Hopefully,
that's come out through the processing as well.
(12:13):
But yeah,
it's kind of cool to know that we can help the farmers out by just putting our food scraps in the bin.
So,
so on that,
what can and can't go into the green bin?
So,
so we talked a bit about food waste.
So again,
that's all like our meat,
our bones,
our dairy raw cooked could be fish,
it could be rice noodles,
pasta.
(12:35):
What else have I forgotten?
Eggshells,
grains,
lots of different things.
All that sort of food waste can go into the green bin,
which is really,
really good to see.
Um Have I forgotten anything there?
I think I covered it basically.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anything that's edible as well as all your garden waste.
The items that cannot go into your rec uh food and garden waste bin.
(12:58):
Um Very,
very important.
No plastic bags and no biodegradable bags also.
No um animal waste.
So that includes kitty litter and dog poo.
Whether or not the the dog poo is loose or in plastic bags,
please keep it out.
Um One of the reasons why is because our animal waste contains nasty pathogens that don't fully break down in the composting process.
(13:23):
Um And basically,
it will cause many effects and impacts on the the farmlands if this material does end up out there,
especially if they're growing crops and things like that.
What are some other things that we can't include in the put into the food.
And Garda,
my spin is our treated timber.
Yeah.
So a lot of treated timber will commons see fence palings or off cuts.
(13:46):
If you've got,
you know,
the tools at home making things,
all that timber that you buy from a hardware store typically has been treated with chemicals or even if you've painted the fences,
those are the sorts of things that we don't want to end up being in the compost product just because we are trying to send that to farmers and putting it back in,
(14:06):
putting it back in the parks and gardens and those chemicals aren't helpful for growing things.
So we just want to keep it as clean and as natural as possible.
Um,
some of those timber products as well have staples or nails or screws still in them,
so we just leave them out.
Keep them out.
(14:27):
Yeah.
What about,
um,
say bundled up branches or garden waste that's gone into a plastic bag.
What's the rule with that in our garden waste?
Yeah.
So,
just like your yellow littered bin,
we want to keep it all loose.
Don't bundle it up,
don't bag it up.
I understand it's convenient when particularly autumn time there's loads of leaves on the ground to rake them up and put them in a bag.
(14:50):
Just take the bag over to the bin,
tip it upside down and shake them all in and then put your reuse the bag or,
or put it in the garbage bin or take it to the soft plastic recycling.
Yeah.
Yeah,
that's a good example.
One of the other ones that I'm,
I've,
it has brought up to,
to our attention was people think,
you know,
you can put your tea bags so you can put your loose leaf tea in.
(15:12):
But what about your,
like,
coffee pods?
Because quite often people think I can put my coffee pods in because it's containing coffee.
But it's actually not because it's a plastic pod.
So I'd recommend scraping it out as best as you can.
Same with the tea bags as well.
Unfortunately,
a lot of the tea bags nowadays,
they might look paper,
but they're that composite material,
(15:33):
which I think is the key word of the uh the podcast because we've talked a lot about composite items,
which is a mixture of paper and plastic.
Um So please keep out any of those sort of composite or plastic items that might be containing food.
Um Yes,
if you want to go that extra mile,
you can tip out your tea from the tea bags or scrape your coffee out of the coffee pod.
(15:53):
Um But please don't put those whole items in.
Um Unless you're 100% sure it's a 100% of paper,
which is a very,
very small chance that it actually is the best to be safe and just leave it out or better yet just buy loose leaf.
I know,
tea bags are convenient but just buy loose leaf.
It's far less packaging,
far less waste,
(16:14):
far less energy and water that's gone into making those products.
It's just better all round.
Really?
Yeah.
Just keep it out.
Now,
when it comes to oversized garden waste,
we do see sometimes,
uh,
we've talked about in previous,
uh,
episodes where we actually do a bin inspection program where we go around and do a friendly reminder for everyone to do the right thing.
(16:35):
And we often leave a happy face or a sad face tag um on the on the bin.
And one of the things we quite often see is what we call an oversized bin where we have say a normal bin and we have a whole tree sticking out that's twice the size of the bin.
So just again,
a friendly reminder when it does come to putting your green waist items in your food and garden bin,
(16:58):
please make sure the items are,
are generally no longer or thicker than say your forearm.
So it's,
it's just a good sort of rule of thumb just so you can visualize how long and how thick those items can be as well.
Yeah,
I mean,
the reason for the,
the length and the size is so that the machinery that's munching up and mulching,
that uh organic waste can actually go through the machine,
(17:21):
nothing gets stuck.
But also the length means it can actually get tied into the truck,
it doesn't hang out or fall out onto the street and create a mess.
It's it's really so we can pick it up nice and cleanly.
There's no mess to pick up and it can all be processed smoothly.
Yeah.
No that's good.
Cool.
Alright,
so now we'll just move on to some more fun facts with the green bin.
(17:44):
Just a reminder with your food and garden bin.
Um it is collected as per normal over public holidays,
school holidays,
major holiday periods.
So like Easter Christmas Day,
New Year's,
so you don't have to worry about not putting out your bin.
Um We are having new waste calendars every,
every year,
every calendar year.
Um and these waste calendars to help remind you what week is your correct bin because we do see quite often a lot of neighborhoods,
(18:09):
someone puts out a yellow recycling bin on a green day and the rest of the street follow suit.
So if you're after a waste calendar,
they are online,
they're also in the Kingston,
your City magazine.
And um if you would like,
we do have a few copies at the Cheltenham Council office as well that you can pop in and collect.
(18:29):
Um As well as that if you are interested in changing your bin sizes or requesting additional recycling or garden waste bin,
please feel free to give council a call as well.
We're more than happy to help out.
And finally,
if you do have all those extra tree pruning.
Say,
for example,
you're doing a blitz in the garden,
you've got lots of tree branches that you've chopped up.
(18:49):
Um And they can't fit in your green bin.
Don't stress too much.
What you can do is you can organize a free tree pruning collection.
Um or also could be a Christmas tree collection as well if it's that time of the year.
Um And essentially council will come around and collect some bundles of garden waste on your front Nature Strip.
Just be mindful.
(19:10):
It's only 20 bundles um less than 30 centimeters in diameter and no more than 1.5 m in length.
But there's lots of information on that online.
But just so everyone's aware that we do have that extra collection if you do happen to fill up your garden bin.
So hopefully there's no oversized things in that garden bin.
So I can't have a bonfire in the backyard,
(19:33):
got some marshmallows.
I'll bring the marshmallows.
Cool.
Alrighty.
Well,
I think that wraps up our food and garden waste uh trash talk episode for today.
Thanks everyone for listening.
Our next episode is super exciting.
Um And we're talking all about waste energy.
So thanks again for joining us and we'll uh talk some more trash with,
(19:55):
with you soon.
Thanks.
See you.
Welcome to Trash talk,
the world's trashiest podcast where we sort through your waste and recycling.
Hello,
everybody and welcome to Trash Talk podcast.
(00:25):
I'm Freya Kingston Council's Waste Education Officer.
And here with me today is jokes.
Um And we're gonna be discussing all things trash.
So talking lots of rubbish today,
we're talking all about that food and garden waste bin.
So your green bin that you have at home.
So let's get into the nitty gritty details.
(00:47):
So City Kingston is doing pretty well with our food and garden waste at the moment.
Uh We are composting just over 20,000 tons of food and garden waste each year.
Um And it's great to see that 49,000 properties have received a caddy and compostible liner um Last year as a part of this new food,
food and garden rollout,
which is really,
(01:07):
really great to see.
Um Another positive is that we've had an extra 1000 households sign up for a new green bin as well.
So it's really good to see that great uptake and to add to that just as a,
a one year on uh sort of thing.
Uh We've had an extra 4000 tons of extra food and garden waste material composted this year compared to last year.
(01:30):
So that's almost two Olympic swimming pools of material that we're getting out of our land fill landfill bin or our rubbish bin and composting it and turning it into a great um usable resource.
That's awesome.
That's really good.
And,
and the really exciting thing as well to see is that our contamination is also very low,
which means that we're putting generally all the right things in.
(01:52):
So it's really good,
good work.
So keep up the great work,
Kingston.
And let's keep working um to help reduce our goals of sending very little rubbish to landfill.
Alright.
So what is this all about?
What is this food and garden waste bin all about jules?
Well,
the idea is that we can take those resources,
(02:14):
as you said from what was traditionally going in our red littered bin and bringing that over and actually turning it into a resource.
So we want to see things like your garden waste as you've normally been doing for a long time.
But now all of your food waste as well.
And when I say all your food waste,
I mean,
all of it,
I mean,
eat what you get.
(02:34):
Yeah,
don't,
you know,
buy unnecessarily,
we still want to avoid making waste in the first place but scraps unavoidable waste like carrot,
peels potatoes.
Exactly.
Yeah,
chopped bones,
things like that.
Cool.
So,
so what sort of uh food waste can now go in?
So originally we just had it as a garden clipping or a garden waste bin.
(02:58):
And so now we can add in all of that food waste.
So it's your meat,
your bones,
your dairy,
all those different items can,
can go in which will go into a bit more detail a bit further on.
But one of the reasons is why,
why is council doing this?
Well,
yeah,
yeah.
So the reason is that 37% of the contents of the red bin has been organic waste.
(03:22):
So food scraps.
Yeah,
it's all the food scraps and you know,
up until this point that is how we managed it.
But things have changed.
We now have the Fogo Service,
Food Organics.
Garden Organics is the longer version of that one.
But now we can put that in the green litter bin.
And as well as that,
(03:42):
um we have had 37% of food waste,
but we've had a fair bit of garden waste on top of that,
that has been going into that rubbish bin.
So it's really important that we capture both that food waste and the garden waste and try and get that going into that green litter bin for composting.
Um But one of the other effects of having our food waste in our landfill bin is that food waste is the biggest producer of methane gas and now methane gas as we've talked about in previous episodes isn't very good for our environment.
(04:11):
It's,
it's very,
very toxic.
It's just,
it's just really important just to stop it in general.
And the best way to stop creating methane gas um is by getting our food waste and composting it um appropriately and making sure that that methane is not released from it.
Um because it's getting turned into compost.
So,
so to manage that methane in landfills,
(04:33):
we've talked about on a previous episode depending on the landfill.
If it's a new one,
they'll purpose build facilities to capture that methane and to burn it and generate electricity.
So it's not just going into the atmosphere of raw methane,
but I know some landfills around the country have been retrofitted with that technology that can capture the vast majority of it,
(04:55):
but not all of it.
So,
yeah,
like we've said,
we really want to push that waste into the green bin.
So it gets composted.
And during that process because it's in an aerobic environment,
meaning it has oxygen freely available,
it can break down without producing vast quantities of methane,
(05:15):
far less than it would in a landfill.
Yeah.
Yeah,
exactly.
And,
and by doing the simple thing of,
you know,
rather than putting your making that decision of putting your food waste in that rubbish bin at home by putting it into your compost caddy that you may have received um all the,
all the liners or putting it into the green bin.
It,
it's just a very simple thing that you can do at home.
That makes such a huge difference overall as well.
(05:36):
And you don't have to use the council caddy.
You can use ice cream tub if you want.
Um,
you can use the,
the caddy and that's what it was there for,
to help and encourage residents to use it.
But you don't have to,
you can get creative and,
and use things around the house as well.
Um Or you can just have the liners sitting on the bench but just be mindful that those compostible liners um that we have provided to help with that,
(05:59):
you know,
capturing that food waste and going into the green bin is designed to break down after a couple of days.
So the idea is that it's not supposed to sit in your caddy for a week because the,
the the liner will start breaking down and splitting.
So very important that you are emptying your caddy regularly every couple of days um to help stop it from splitting.
(06:20):
Um So on the on the compostible liners,
we might as well chat about it.
Now while we're,
while we're chatting about them is,
you know,
can we put any compostible liner or biodegradable liner or plastic bag in our green bin?
So not any old liner.
It needs to specifically have um a little seedling logo.
(06:40):
So it's like a little sprouting seed that has a loop,
sort of has its root system.
Uh If you see that symbol on the bag at a supermarket or anywhere else,
um,
that's what we're looking for.
If it has that we know it's compostible,
not biodegradable,
they're very different terms.
It can be a bit confusing,
but look for that symbol.
(07:02):
That's what we want to see.
It generally have like a,
an Australian standard,
like an A S number,
um letters and some numbers next to it as well.
But yeah,
it is very confusing because there's a lot of companies now creating degradable bags which people are thinking is compostible,
but they're,
they're not able to be composted.
So please make sure you've got um you purchase new liners with this seedling logo or to make it easier come down,
(07:25):
feel free to pick a free roll up from the customer care desk at uh the Cheltenham Council office.
Um Just make sure you've got some ID.
Um and Council will give you another roll of liners as well just to help encourage everyone to do the right thing.
But again,
on the liners,
if you don't want to use them,
that's fine too.
You're more than welcome to put your food scraps into your garden bin loose.
(07:46):
Um And this is where it gets a bit complicated in earlier resources.
We did say you're allowed paper and newspaper and paper towel in the green bin.
We only want it in small amounts So one or two sheets to cover up the bones or the food scraps.
And that's just to help to absorb any moisture and things like that.
Um,
(08:06):
in your green bin,
I do recommend if you're putting your food waste in your green bin loose to cover it over with some garden waste as well and that will just help protect it.
Um,
and yeah,
and keep it nice and covered and cool and things like that.
So,
but yeah,
when it comes to liners,
just keep an eye out for the seedling um and just watch out for the biodegradable wording on packaging.
(08:27):
Um and,
and plastic bags because they,
they are plastic bags,
they're not um compostible liners,
which is what council are after.
Alrighty.
So whereabouts does our food and garden waste go?
Well,
the city of Kingston sends all of their um fruit,
the food and garden waste trucks to a facility in Dandenong South where it is processed.
(08:47):
Um And what happens to that material jules.
So basically it'll get dumped into a big concrete bunker or uh container and it'll be sat there man managing the temperature and the oxygen to help those organisms that exist in the garden waste and food waste start to break things down and it'll sit there for three days or so.
(09:14):
A couple of days.
Yeah.
And it almost looks a bit like a shipping container sort of thing.
Yeah.
And once it's gone through the three day waiting period.
It will then be moved out of there for new product to come in and it will be put outside or into what's called a Winrow where basically this super cool machine,
(09:36):
it's awesome.
It almost looks like a spider.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah,
I think of it like a,
a transformer.
Yeah.
So it,
it's sort of a horseshoe shape and it has a little,
um,
cavity for the driver to get in.
And once he's in,
it lifts up above the machine and it has a big barrel with these big um uh almost like blades or just paddles on this big uh circular thingy.
(10:05):
My very scientific but,
and he basically drives over the garden,
waste out the compost at this point and it just turns the whole thing over and makes a big row of waste.
That's why we call it a windrow and they just turn that over every once in a while to make sure it's all getting mixed up.
(10:25):
It's breaking down.
Well,
and it's getting lots of oxygen.
Yeah.
And,
and in a,
in a couple of weeks,
you have some very lovely high quality finish compost,
which is fantastic to see.
So um I do,
we will be running tours to this facility,
hopefully.
Um Now that we restrictions are finishing up and ending,
(10:45):
which is good.
Um So if you are interested in coming along and seeing this super cool,
I call the spider,
but um the the cool technology at this facility.
Um Please feel free to sign up to the uh sustainability E news letter which is on Council's website.
Uh because that's where we advertise all of our workshops and everything.
But yeah,
very,
(11:05):
very cool facility.
Uh And forgot to mention that this facility is in Dandenong South.
So it's really close by as well,
which is good.
So we're not sending our materials too far away.
So the finished product as well.
Um Before we jump into what can and can't um the finished product from,
from that facility,
that Jill was just talking about.
Where does it go?
(11:26):
It,
what,
what,
what did we do with it?
So it goes back into the environment,
it goes back on to parks and gardens,
garden beds and councils,
sporting fields,
all those and,
and even farmers take it as well.
So farmers can um spread it amongst their crops and things like that.
We do have a couple of little farms um actually within the Kingston area and close to metro Melbourne that are taking this uh finished compost,
(11:52):
which is really good to see.
So we're helping to close the loop and keep it all local as well.
Yeah.
So by recycling,
right,
with the green bin,
you're really helping the farmers,
you know,
make sure you put the right things in so they can grow their crops and not have to deal with any contaminants or things like that.
Hopefully,
that's come out through the processing as well.
(12:13):
But yeah,
it's kind of cool to know that we can help the farmers out by just putting our food scraps in the bin.
So,
so on that,
what can and can't go into the green bin?
So,
so we talked a bit about food waste.
So again,
that's all like our meat,
our bones,
our dairy raw cooked could be fish,
it could be rice noodles,
pasta.
(12:35):
What else have I forgotten?
Eggshells,
grains,
lots of different things.
All that sort of food waste can go into the green bin,
which is really,
really good to see.
Um Have I forgotten anything there?
I think I covered it basically.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anything that's edible as well as all your garden waste.
The items that cannot go into your rec uh food and garden waste bin.
(12:58):
Um Very,
very important.
No plastic bags and no biodegradable bags also.
No um animal waste.
So that includes kitty litter and dog poo.
Whether or not the the dog poo is loose or in plastic bags,
please keep it out.
Um One of the reasons why is because our animal waste contains nasty pathogens that don't fully break down in the composting process.
(13:23):
Um And basically,
it will cause many effects and impacts on the the farmlands if this material does end up out there,
especially if they're growing crops and things like that.
What are some other things that we can't include in the put into the food.
And Garda,
my spin is our treated timber.
Yeah.
So a lot of treated timber will commons see fence palings or off cuts.
(13:46):
If you've got,
you know,
the tools at home making things,
all that timber that you buy from a hardware store typically has been treated with chemicals or even if you've painted the fences,
those are the sorts of things that we don't want to end up being in the compost product just because we are trying to send that to farmers and putting it back in,
(14:06):
putting it back in the parks and gardens and those chemicals aren't helpful for growing things.
So we just want to keep it as clean and as natural as possible.
Um,
some of those timber products as well have staples or nails or screws still in them,
so we just leave them out.
Keep them out.
(14:27):
Yeah.
What about,
um,
say bundled up branches or garden waste that's gone into a plastic bag.
What's the rule with that in our garden waste?
Yeah.
So,
just like your yellow littered bin,
we want to keep it all loose.
Don't bundle it up,
don't bag it up.
I understand it's convenient when particularly autumn time there's loads of leaves on the ground to rake them up and put them in a bag.
(14:50):
Just take the bag over to the bin,
tip it upside down and shake them all in and then put your reuse the bag or,
or put it in the garbage bin or take it to the soft plastic recycling.
Yeah.
Yeah,
that's a good example.
One of the other ones that I'm,
I've,
it has brought up to,
to our attention was people think,
you know,
you can put your tea bags so you can put your loose leaf tea in.
(15:12):
But what about your,
like,
coffee pods?
Because quite often people think I can put my coffee pods in because it's containing coffee.
But it's actually not because it's a plastic pod.
So I'd recommend scraping it out as best as you can.
Same with the tea bags as well.
Unfortunately,
a lot of the tea bags nowadays,
they might look paper,
but they're that composite material,
(15:33):
which I think is the key word of the uh the podcast because we've talked a lot about composite items,
which is a mixture of paper and plastic.
Um So please keep out any of those sort of composite or plastic items that might be containing food.
Um Yes,
if you want to go that extra mile,
you can tip out your tea from the tea bags or scrape your coffee out of the coffee pod.
(15:53):
Um But please don't put those whole items in.
Um Unless you're 100% sure it's a 100% of paper,
which is a very,
very small chance that it actually is the best to be safe and just leave it out or better yet just buy loose leaf.
I know,
tea bags are convenient but just buy loose leaf.
It's far less packaging,
far less waste,
(16:14):
far less energy and water that's gone into making those products.
It's just better all round.
Really?
Yeah.
Just keep it out.
Now,
when it comes to oversized garden waste,
we do see sometimes,
uh,
we've talked about in previous,
uh,
episodes where we actually do a bin inspection program where we go around and do a friendly reminder for everyone to do the right thing.
(16:35):
And we often leave a happy face or a sad face tag um on the on the bin.
And one of the things we quite often see is what we call an oversized bin where we have say a normal bin and we have a whole tree sticking out that's twice the size of the bin.
So just again,
a friendly reminder when it does come to putting your green waist items in your food and garden bin,
(16:58):
please make sure the items are,
are generally no longer or thicker than say your forearm.
So it's,
it's just a good sort of rule of thumb just so you can visualize how long and how thick those items can be as well.
Yeah,
I mean,
the reason for the,
the length and the size is so that the machinery that's munching up and mulching,
that uh organic waste can actually go through the machine,
(17:21):
nothing gets stuck.
But also the length means it can actually get tied into the truck,
it doesn't hang out or fall out onto the street and create a mess.
It's it's really so we can pick it up nice and cleanly.
There's no mess to pick up and it can all be processed smoothly.
Yeah.
No that's good.
Cool.
Alright,
so now we'll just move on to some more fun facts with the green bin.
(17:44):
Just a reminder with your food and garden bin.
Um it is collected as per normal over public holidays,
school holidays,
major holiday periods.
So like Easter Christmas Day,
New Year's,
so you don't have to worry about not putting out your bin.
Um We are having new waste calendars every,
every year,
every calendar year.
Um and these waste calendars to help remind you what week is your correct bin because we do see quite often a lot of neighborhoods,
(18:09):
someone puts out a yellow recycling bin on a green day and the rest of the street follow suit.
So if you're after a waste calendar,
they are online,
they're also in the Kingston,
your City magazine.
And um if you would like,
we do have a few copies at the Cheltenham Council office as well that you can pop in and collect.
(18:29):
Um As well as that if you are interested in changing your bin sizes or requesting additional recycling or garden waste bin,
please feel free to give council a call as well.
We're more than happy to help out.
And finally,
if you do have all those extra tree pruning.
Say,
for example,
you're doing a blitz in the garden,
you've got lots of tree branches that you've chopped up.
(18:49):
Um And they can't fit in your green bin.
Don't stress too much.
What you can do is you can organize a free tree pruning collection.
Um or also could be a Christmas tree collection as well if it's that time of the year.
Um And essentially council will come around and collect some bundles of garden waste on your front Nature Strip.
Just be mindful.
(19:10):
It's only 20 bundles um less than 30 centimeters in diameter and no more than 1.5 m in length.
But there's lots of information on that online.
But just so everyone's aware that we do have that extra collection if you do happen to fill up your garden bin.
So hopefully there's no oversized things in that garden bin.
So I can't have a bonfire in the backyard,
(19:33):
got some marshmallows.
I'll bring the marshmallows.
Cool.
Alrighty.
Well,
I think that wraps up our food and garden waste uh trash talk episode for today.
Thanks everyone for listening.
Our next episode is super exciting.
Um And we're talking all about waste energy.
So thanks again for joining us and we'll uh talk some more trash with,
(19:55):
with you soon.
Thanks.
See you.
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