The delivery of food recycling into every apartment in Sydney’s Inner West Council is about to be complete, with the expansion of the service into the former Ashfield Municipality.
The service, which was pioneered at Leichhardt Council, was expanded to all apartments in Marrickville in September 2020.
Mayor Darcy Byrne, who helped establish the system at Leichhardt Council, said this is a crucial step in council’s war on waste.
“We need to eliminate food organics from residential garbage bins that could be otherwise recycled,” he said.
Byrne added that food waste makes up 35 per cent of waste in the average bin.
“It is unnecessarily filling up our landfill sites and contributing eight per cent to our total greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.
“We want to lead the nation in eliminating organic waste. This announcement is the latest stage in the complete overhaul of our domestic waste services.”
Since the Marrickville service area was introduced in September last year, council has recovered 350 tonnes of food organics, which has saved 770,000 kilograms of carbon emissions.
“We are also continuing in the campaign to see a single food recycling service adopted across broader Sydney, as we want every household to have access to the scheme ASAP,” Byrne said.
Apartment residents in Ashfield are currently receiving their kitchen bench top bins, special compostable bags and information to assist them in separating food organics at home to put into designated burgundy lidded bins.
The project is supported by the Environmental Trust as part of the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment Waste Less, Recycle More initiative funded from the waste levy.
The service commences 29 March.
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