While I appreciate it’s not quite like throwing the slops into the street, the upcoming kerbside food waste collection trials seem to have opened a can of worms for me. Why? I’m glad you asked.
As read in the NZHerald this week ‘Compost Food, Save Money‘, Auckland is about to undergo a trial. Within the suburbs of Takapuna, Glendfield, Northcote and Forrest Hill (in which I currently reside), 2000 households will soon separate their food waste from the rest. They’ll be provided with a kitchen caddy, biodegradable bin liners, and a slop bin (where daily waste will be transferred, then carried to kerbside on weekly collection day).
The aim is to minimise food waste that currently ends up in landfill.
The trials are heralding that this will save money. Apparently 40% of the contents in regular rubbish bags are food waste and take up room in a bag otherwise destined for landfill. The financial saving to the householder is $2.20 per prepaid 60lt rubbish bag, and to the council – the decrease in collection fees as the bags would then be collected fortnightly (although this is questionable as they will still be required to pick up the food waste weekly).
This is my soap-box and here are my thoughts:
Firstly, let it be said that I whole-heartedly embrace the idea of composting food waste. In our house, we feed stale bread to the birds (which probably gives them heart burn unfortunately), vegetable scraps go to the worm farm, and only meat scraps are discarded in the bin destined for landfill. I’m not the problem household, I’m sure of it.
Here lies a few little problems:
Some people just won’t
Despite enthusiastic ‘how to’ brochures (which will no doubt cost the Council a small fortune to design, print and distribute Auckland wide), not everyone will separate their food from their paper, their meat bones from their tin cans. Old habits die hard. In New Zealand we’ve had recycling for ages. A percentage of us diligently sort each week, and others won’t. It’s just a matter of fact.
How much?
The trials are providing 40 biodegradable bin-liners (for a plastic kitchen caddy to contain scraps before transferring into the larger slop bin that goes curbside on collection day). How much will the biodegradable bin-liners cost? Who will be paying for them after the trial? Will they be provided complimentary for as long as you shall live and recycle? I think not.
The odds are, well minded folk who spend a concerted effort to separate food straps into the caddy will use supermarket bags as bin liners. Are they biodegradable? No. Will the council collect any non-biodegradable bags? Unsure. If no, that’ll mean rotting food left kerbside that is uncollected. If yes, will the council employ staff to split open the bags to help with composting? If not, then the bags won’t biodegrade and the exercise is useless.
Has it worked anywhere else?
“We are testing methodology that’s been proven around the world and …..
Really? It would bring great peace of mind to hear all about the successful implementation in Europe (as they refer to earlier in the article). My understanding (based on numerous articles online) is that Britain has implemented a fortnightly rubbish collection and now dealing with a massive rat problem – creating $1b structural damage to homes by rodents. Why? Because some people just won’t sort food waste from the rest. Collection decreases from weekly to fortnightly. Cats, dogs — but more problematic rats, are blooming.
There will be people like myself that will reduce waste. We do it not because a council tells us, but because it makes sense. Whether the change occurs or not, we will continue to reduce waste because it makes sense.
What does the Council intend to do with it?
In a landfill, food waste rotted into the greenhouse gas methane, he said. It was better to process that food waste into a resource, such as energy or compost….
I was of the understanding, in a true landfill environment, that everything pretty much became putrefied as the oxygen snuffed out any hope of natural decomposing. Newspaper remained intact. This is the case as nappies (even the biodegradable ones) won’t decompose in a landfill. The reason being, there was not enough oxygen and elements, to successfully decompose waste that would otherwise compost quite happily in your backyard. Landfills create methane yes — but not just from food. Nappies are a great source to….and methane doesn’t have to be bad, if it can be collected.
If the council’s intention is to collect the methane and then use it as an energy source, how will they? Have they built the plants yet? If not, where do they intend the methane to be collected? Will they put the ‘energy’ back in to the grid so we can get an electricity reduction?
Will they sell back our food scraps to us as compost? Wouldn’t it be better we households took ownership of that from the get-go?.
What are the options?
Most houses less than 40 years old are likely to have a in-sinkerator/regurgitator (or a ‘gurgler’ as I call it) for slushing up food scraps fine enough to wash away with the grey water. That works. That keeps food waste out of the landfill.
How about we grow our own veges, compost our own food scraps and get a discount on our rates for saving the Auckland Council plastic slop bins, reducing the carbon footprint, being sustainable and healthy?
How about they give us all a Hungry Bin worm farm and we can happily compost away in our our backyards, to fertilise the Delilahs or better still, the potatoes!
*I step down from my soap-box. Session is over.*
