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Not all kerbside FOGO bins can accept the same kinds of food and kitchen waste. This difference is due to the availability of the facilities nearby.
When it comes to kerbside organics recycling, what can go into your bin can differ wildly from council to council, not to mention state to state. Not all Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) materials can go into your bin. Here’s what you should know about your kerbside FOGO bin:
Almost all FOGO bins will always accept grass clippings, small branches, and flowers in the kerbside organics bin. These can be placed as is in your bin, no bagging required. Be careful not to overfill your bin and that the lid can always be closed.
Not all FOGO are created equal
Not all kerbside FOGO bins can accept the same kinds of food and kitchen waste. This difference is due to the availability of the facilities nearby. Not all facilities are able to process food and kitchen waste, especially cooked food and bones.
What you can do
If you have access to a FOGO bin, always check with your council before placing food waste into the bin. If you cannot place food in your kerbside organics bin, look around in neighbourhood chats to find composting groups for your food waste.
Meal planning and making a list of groceries you need will also help you cut down on potential food waste. Across the supply to consumption chain, it is estimated that Australians waste around 7.6 million tonnes of food annually, the equal of 312kg per person. Planning both your meals and your grocery will help cut down on this.
Contact us to learn more about making a sustainable future together possible with your organics waste.
Anaerobic FOGO facilities extract the biogas from FOGO and use it to generate clean energy.
Food and garden waste, collectively known as FOGO, is one of the heaviest components of your general waste bin. Financially, food waste costs Australian households about $2,000 to $2,500 a year. Environmentally, FOGO sent to landfill can generate incredible amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Diverting FOGO from landfill offers plenty of benefits for our communities and surrounding environment. FOGO facilities like Cleanaway’s South East Organics Facility can sort, decontaminate and shred organic waste from businesses and residents into components perfect for composting facilities.
For many, one of the challenges with FOGO disposal is the smell. If you have a FOGO bin, keep it in the shade wherever possible. Layering your food waste between garden waste can also reduce the smell. If you have items like prawn shells and meat, freeze the waste (depending on space available) and put them in your bin only on collection day to prevent attracting scavengers.
Ready to join the FOGO revolution? Contact us to learn how your FOGO waste can make a sustainable future possible together.
“Swap sandwich bags and cling wrap for reusable containers, beeswax wraps or silicone sandwich bags that can be washed and re-used.”
The new school term is a great opportunity to start the sustainability conversation with young students. Here are some simple and practical projects you can explore:
“Swap sandwich bags and cling wrap for reusable containers, beeswax wraps or silicone sandwich bags that can be washed and re-used,” she suggests, pointing out that otherwise, using single-use plastic sandwich bags can send around 180 bags sent to landfill per child, per year.
The same goes for disposable water bottles, which requires 3 litres of water and 250ml of oil to produce a single water bottle containing 1 litre of water.
Food waste is especially concerning, as large amounts are being thrown away – wasting not just the resources to grow and produce the food, but also the money on purchasing it in the first place. Michelle suggests involving children in the process of making recess and lunch and letting them choose what to eat. This hands-on approach can “encourage them to spend the time eating the food and not throwing it away.”
Finally, she also points out that if food is coming home, stop sending any to school. Children will let you know if they need more food. As play time often follows eating time, children may decide to forfeit food for more play time, so consider packing food that’s quick and easy to eat.
What goes into the bin
The Australasian Recycling Label, introduced in 2018 to provide recycling information, can help spark conversations and discussions about packaging and help ensure the right materials go into the bin. Planet Ark has a comprehensive Educator’s Tool Kit to help educators and schools introduce this topic to students.
A waste audit is also an effective way to get students to think about what goes in a bin. It’s a practical approach that gets students thinking creatively about waste and its effect on the environment.
From trash to treasure
Creating meaningful artwork from discarded waste can also help students appreciate both their natural environment and kindle a love for sustainability. Activities such as Gympie’s recent “Junk for Junk” and Cleanaway’s Waste Warrior Challenges encourage creativity and heightened sensitivity to the effects of waste on the environment.
It sounds unusual, but worm farming is a novel way to teach students about sustainability while helping schools manage their organic waste, particularly food. Worm farms and compost heaps can get students thinking about where their food comes from and the effort it takes to grow them.
Contact us to learn more about making a sustainable future possible together for your students and school today.
Batteries of all types can be found in nearly everything we use today: from button batteries in our car keys to lithium batteries in our smartwatches.
Our busy lives are powered by these little things, and in turn we should never be too busy to discard them properly at the end of their life cycle.
Why is it important to keep used batteries out of kerbside recycling bins?
No battery lasts forever. It’s in the nature of single use batteries to run flat and the same goes for rechargeable batteries which eventually lose their capacity to hold a charge.
If you’re still guessing where, here’s a hint – it’s not in your wheelie bin!
Pictured: Batteries disposed in kerbside bins can start fires in the back of garbage trucks and threaten the safety of the community at large.
Most batteries contain toxic heavy metals such as nickel, cadmium and mercury that are harmful to human, animal and plant life if released into waterways and ecosystems via landfill.
Li-ion batteries are highly sensitive to temperature changes and when discarded in household recycling bins they are likely to catch fire.
Fires can also break out in the back of garbage collection vehicles and at transfer stations where batteries frequently come into contact with flammable waste.
Pictured: Li-ion batteries discarded in a kerbside bin ignited at a Cleanaway transfer station.
What should you do with your used batteries?
Before dropping off your used batteries for recycling, tape the terminals first. To do this all you need is some non-conductive tape such as clear sticky tape, duct tape or electrical tape.
The next step would be to keep them in a glass jar, away from metal objects or heat sources such as stoves, radiators and even the sun!
Also, never store your batteries in a metal container as this can lead to sparks.
Pictured: The fire damage seen in the pictures above was caused by a vape pen battery that was thrown in a kerbside recycling bin.
Where can you dispose of your used batteries?
Aim to drop off your used batteries for recycling every six months. Retail outlets and supermarkets accept all kinds of batteries and e-waste for recycling:
Aldi: household batteries i.e. AA, AAA, C, D and 9V batteries (both rechargeable and non-rechargeable are accepted)
Battery World: check with your local store to see which kinds of batteries are accepted
Bunnings: household batteries i.e. AA, AAA, C, D and 9V batteries, batteries from power tools
Officeworks: household batteries i.e. AA, AAA, C, D and 9V batteries, laptop/mobile phone batteries
Woolworths: household batteries i.e. AA, AAA, C, D and 9V batteries.
Pictured: Battery recycling drop-off points at Bunnings (left) and Woolworths (right).
You can also search for a drop off point nearest to you using B-cycle’s list of drop off points.
B-cycle is Australia’s official battery stewardship scheme and is government backed to recycle used batteries, ensuring that the precious materials used to make them are reused.
The scheme has collected more than 918,000 kilograms of used batteries through 3,200 drop-off points across all states and territories in just six months.
Many councils offer free old battery disposal and e-waste recycling programs for residents to bring in their unwanted household batteries.
You can ring your local council and ask if battery disposal and recycling services are available to you.
Pictured: A Cleanaway driver servicing City of Casey had to drop the hot load in his new truck for the County Fire Authority to put out.
Pictured: This laptop with its battery still intact started a fire inside a baler at a Cleanaway sorting facility.
What happens to used batteries that are dropped off for recycling?
Batteries contain up to 95% recyclable materials. Through recycling, any steel, copper and aluminium present in them are reintroduced to the manufacturing sector for use in new products.
The active components of li-ion batteries such as graphite, cobalt, nickel and aluminium are turned into mixed metal dust which forms the building blocks of new li-ion batteries.
Battery manufacturers are seeing the value in battery recycling and are ramping up their roles within the ecosystem in Australia. According to McKinsey Battery Insights manufacturers will benefit greatly from a closed loop for batteries.
End of life li-ion batteries is a waste stream that is growing by 20% each year. As the battery recycling market matures, manufacturers will be able to lower their production costs by reusing raw materials present in used batteries while lowering their dependence on virgin raw material – a win-win situation for both industry and the environment.
Contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible for communities and businesses across Australia.
Composting at home can also reduce reliance on chemical fertilisers, expensive soil conditioners and other chemical products.
FOGO, known as Food Organics and Green Organics, can make up to 70% of your kerbside general waste bin. This completely avoidable waste costs Australian households about $2,000 to $2,500 a year. It is often the heaviest and most recyclable waste in your general waste bin. But what exactly is FOGO?
FOGO consists of organic material which can usually be recycled into beneficial soil conditioners, such as your compost, organic fertilisers and mulch. This is usually divided into food waste (FO) and garden waste (GO).
The National Waste Report 2022 points out approximately 4.69 Mt (megatonnes) of food waste alone was generated by households and businesses. If food ends up in landfill, that’s a waste of the time and effort to grow it. In landfill it will also attract pests while generating odour, leachate and gases like methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. This makes diverting FOGO from landfill a priority in the effort to fight climate change.
In some locations, the processing facility has the capability to accept all kinds of organic material, including cooked food, animal hair and food gone bad. However, most Australians have access to just a GO service (48% of the population), as not all organic processing facilities can manage food waste appropriately.
One of the challenges of processing FOGO bins is managing higher odour risks from food waste, which may affect nearby communities. Another is the lack of awareness of FOGO services and restrictions which may lead to contamination. Well-designed FOGO services which include the provision of kitchen caddies and certified compostable liners, can minimise bin contamination and collect up to 75% of food waste generated in a locale.
So what can you do? If you do not have a FOGO kerbside bin, consider recycling your FOGO yourself. There are now many online guides and resources to help you get the most out of your FOGO, including worm farm and compost guides for homes of every size. If you are a home gardener, one of the unspoken benefits of creating your own compost is the ability to monitor exactly what goes into the soil of your plants.
Composting at home can also reduce reliance on chemical fertilisers, expensive soil conditioners and other chemical products. You can also check with your local council or neighbourhood groups to start or join a communal compost. Plan your groceries and make a list to reduce food waste.
For many businesses, recycling FOGO has its own set of challenges due to strict product requirements and product wastage. Most of these can be recycled and diverted from landfill with new technologies, dedicated bins and better waste education.
Get ready for the FOGO revolution or contact us to learn more about using FOGO to make a sustainable future possible together for your business and organisation.
As the conversations around sustainability broaden around climate change, carbon emissions and the circular economy, we take a look at how recycling (and you) can play an important part.
How does recycling reduce our carbon footprint?
Our daily actions leave behind an invisible ‘footprint’. This carbon footprint can be big or small depending on the action, but one thing is for sure: we’re all contributing to carbon emissions.
Recycling limits the amount of virgin materials required to make our everyday products. This in turn lowers energy consumption during manufacturing. When we use less energy to make our products, we emit less carbon emissions.
Aluminium is a good example of how this works. Recycling aluminium for use in new products saves 95% of the energy required to manufacture aluminium products from raw aluminium in the form of bauxite ore.
Aluminium is an infinitely recyclable material, making it one of earth’s most sustainable materials. About 75% of all aluminium produced in history – amounting to roughly a billion tonnes – is still in use today.
When material such as aluminium is recycled and reused locally it also cuts down on the carbon emissions that result from transporting new products from factory to warehouse to store and finally to your home.
Tip: When shopping for your next electronic appliance or tool, check and compare Energy Rating labels before making your purchase to help you reduce your household carbon footprint.
How does recycling minimise the effects of climate change?
Climate change is defined as long term shifts in temperature and weather patterns. While these patterns occur naturally, climate change has accelerated rapidly since the 1800s due to human activity, in particular the release of GHG.
When solid waste heads to landfill it is broken down by bacteria into GHG such as methane and carbon dioxide.
Tip: If you don’t have a kerbside organics bin, you can recycle your food scraps and garden waste by composting at home. Composting not only keeps organics from your general waste bin but also produces nutrient rich fertiliser for your plants and soil.
Recycling in the circular economy
For decades we have operated on a linear model: make – take – use – dispose. On the other hand, the circular economy works on the reduce – reuse – recycle principle. It effectively closes the loop on the products we consume by using a recycled product in the remanufacturing process.
Packaging and containers make up the largest volume of plastics waste in Australia. The good news is that most of these plastics can be recycled for use in the manufacture of new products.
What all of this means is that circularity puts us in a sustainable system where we’re continually reusing and recycling our resources, which in turn shrinks our carbon footprints.
Tip: Putting the wrong item in your commingled recycling bin can send a truck full of recyclable items to landfill. Clear the confusion around what you can and cannot recycle with our Recycling Hub.
What can you do to recycle better?
Our Recycling Behaviours Report shows that almost all Australians believe that recycling is important (92%). Many are motivated to recycle to help the environment (79%) and reduce waste sent to landfill (76%).
While the numbers show that we take a positive view of recycling, we’re still lacking in the knowledge department. The report shows that 34% of Australians still find recycling confusing and only 29% are correctly disposing of soft plastics through specialised recycling programs.
Here’s a simple list to help you up your recycling game:
Know what your local council accepts in your recycling bin. When in doubt, leave it out!
Turn your aluminium cans into cash for your charity of choice via container deposit schemes
Keep your recyclables loose in the bin. You can flatten cardboard boxes but don’t squash your cans and bottles
Leave your batteries out of your bins. Instead tape the terminals to prevent fires and store them in a glass container before taking them to your nearest battery recycling drop off point
Avoid becoming a victim of fast fashion! You can take your preloved clothes to stores and clothing manufacturers run take-back programs.
You can get started on your recycling targets in time for this year’s National Recycling Week which takes place from 7 to 13 November 2022.
Contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible for communities and businesses across Australia.
Want to feel good about yourself and your finances? Buy nothing new is for YOU!
Our fast fashion throwaway culture is fueling climate change AND draining our bank balances.
We’re working hard to earn money to spend on ‘stuff’ we don’t need; taking too many natural resources, burning too many fossil fuels to make, transport, store and get rid of our “stuff.”
There’s a beautiful alternative that’s good for us, our pockets, our people and planet.
Want to feel good about yourself and your finances?
Buy nothing new is for YOU!
By the time they retire, the average millennial will have wasted around $300k on ‘stuff’ they don’t need.
There’s a better, smarter way.
For nearly two decades, Tamara has bought nothing new.
She wants you to do the same.
Like FebFast or Dry July for booze, Buy Nothing New Month is a detox from unnecessary shopping.
It gets us to think about our stuff.
Do we need it? Who made it? What were their working conditions?
When we throw it ‘away’, ‘where is away?’
Tamara wants us to:
reimagine our relationship with stuff
to share, swap, borrow, fix, extend the life of the goods we’ve got
to choose secondhand first
to make zero waste our norm
For secondhand everything (Tamara buys everything secondhand, from clothes, furniture, gifts and homewares) try gumtree, facebook marketplace, ebay, depop, the realreal, threadup and charity shops.
Get into swapping, renting, borrowing and sharing.
Support the secondhand and circular economy.
Buy experiences instead of stuff.
Saving money on the stuff we don’t need, we’ve got the money for the stuff we do.
Cleanaway is proud to support The New Joneses on their mission for climate action and a sustainable future.
Visit https://www.thenewjoneses.com/ for more information and contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible together with communities and businesses across Australia.
Aussies currently throw out one in five bags of groceries ($2,000 to $2,500 per household) every year.
We’re excited to be supporting The New Joneses who are on a mission for sustainability with explainers on climate change and how we can all be part of the solution. Each episode features local heroes sharing ‘one thing’ we can all do to protect the planet we love and live on.
Aussies currently throw out one in five bags of groceries ($2,000 to $2,500 per household) every year. Food scraps in the bin to landfill create methane – a toxic gas 20 times worse than the emissions from our cars.
Keeping food scraps from the bin and getting them back into the soil makes for healthy soils to grow more produce.
Healthy soil also draws more carbon out of the atmosphere.
Here’s what you can do to reduce food waste:
Shop to a list
Get a kitchen caddy (any old container will do)
Get a worm farm
Get a compost bin
Get some chickens
Learn the difference between ‘best before’ and ‘used by’.
Got a blender?
Whizz scraps with water to make a ‘sludge smoothie’ and dig it back into the soil.
Do you have a dog like Katy does?
Feed them the leftovers.
No garden?
Live in an apartment?
Google to find out your local council options for organic waste.
Give your scraps to neighbours, friends or family who can get those nutrients back into the soil where they belong.
Do everything you can to keep food scraps from the bin and get that stuff back into the soil.
Visit https://www.thenewjoneses.com/ for more information and contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible for communities and businesses across Australia.
Making recycling education work means producing content that matches the behaviour of the audience
Learning - Resource Recovery
Highlights
If you're a council, educator or simply someone who wants to get the recycling message out there, it's a good idea to start with shorts to appeal to the younger demographic and work your way up from there.
If you're a council, educator or simply someone who wants to get the recycling message out there, it's a good idea to start with shorts to appeal to the younger demographic and work your way up from there.
Crowded digital real estate and varying audience appetite have changed the way content is produced and consumed. For recycling education to be effective in 2022, snackable, short-form content is king among the younger audience whilst long-form content remains a preference for older audiences.
When we launched our second Recycling Behaviours Report this year, we aligned traditional media and social media with the release of the Report offering a range of data about Australia’s recycling awareness and behaviors.
Long-form content included deep dives aimed at educating consumers on key issues such as soft plastic contamination, tricky items and how to recycle them and working with the waste hierarchy to reduce, reuse and recycle
Short-form content was delivered through social media using engaging graphics and videos with snackable tips for maximum engagement.
To date, over 500,000 people were exposed to the Report on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok driving over 1 million video views. If you’re a council, educator or simply someone who wants to get the recycling message out there, it’s a good idea to start with ‘shorts’ to appeal to the younger demographic and work your way up from there. Here is a snapshot of our best short-form videos from our recent Recycling Behaviours Report campaign.
Almost all Australians believe that recycling is important (92%), with many being motivated to recycle to help the environment (79%) and reduce waste sent to landfill (76%). While most make an effort to check their local recycling rules (55%), our 2022 Recycling Behaviour Report exclusives uncover some startling observations and misconceptions.
A staggering 33% don’t know that kerbside recycling is sorted in Australia itself, with the recycling taken to a Material Recovery Facility to be sorted locally before it is sent to the recyclers.
Batteries and other e-waste do not belong in any of your kerbside bins, yet at least 27% of Australians admit to just putting items in the general waste bin while another 10% put things in the commingled recycling bin if they’re unsure. E-waste such as old laptops, phones and batteries can be recycled through a dedicated e-waste provider, and chances are, there’s one near your location.
The lockdown gave many Australians a chance to rethink their sustainability efforts. 77% of Australians are making conscious decisions every day to limit their fast fashion purchases, which are known for their adverse environmental impact. However, many still engage in “wishcycling” and place their old clothes in the kerbside recycling bin, hoping for someone to magically recycle them.
What do reusable and single-use coffee cups have in common? Watch our video to find the answer.
Cleanaway is committed to helping Australians adopt more sustainable behaviours and recycle efficiently. Our 2022 Recycling Behaviours Report highlights common misconceptions about recycling, and deep-dives into the recycling behaviours of everyday Aussies, to encourage change and action.
Read the full report and embark on a journey to make the world a greener place.
The ocean is essential to our life on earth. It provides food for the world and livelihood to more than 4 billion people.
We’re excited to be supporting The New Joneses who are on a mission for sustainability with explainers on climate change and how we can all be part of the solution. Each episode features local heroes sharing ‘one thing’ we can all do to protect the planet we love and live on.
Seeing first hand the impact of our actions on biodiversity in the bay, Sheree Marris wants us to aim for zero waste, avoid single-use plastics and recycle right.
Only 9% of all plastic ever made has been recycled. We need to dramatically reduce the amount we use.
Not only is the plastic ending up in our oceans and environment. It’s ending up in US.
On average, we ingest about one credit card’s worth of plastic a week.
Recycle right and precious resources can be made into something new.
Recycle wrong and we waste the resources that made the packaging in the first place.
Recycle Right with ‘four bins’.
1. RECYCLING = paper/cardboard. glass. tin, hard plastics (milk cartons etc.)
Keep these empty, dry, clean + UNBAGGED (no plastic bags ever in recycle)
2. FOOD SCRAPS Do everything to keep food scraps from the bin.
Some councils accept food scraps in the food and garden organics (FOGO) bin. Check yours.
Set up your compost or worm bin to keep these nutrients from landfill where they harm (creating methane, a toxic gas) + get them into the soil where they heal. (Healthy soil draws more carbon out of the atmosphere.)
3. SOFT PLASTICS. Scrunchable chip, lollie + cereal packets go to the supermarket soft plastics bin to get made into new things!
4. LANDFILL – Aim for this bad-boy to be your smallest bin. It’s the stuff we can’t reuse (polystyrene, broken crockery, ceramics, pyrex used tissues, nappies, wipes)
TIPS:
– “It’s only one straw!” said 8 billion people…everything counts.
– Avoid single use packaging. Remember your reusable bag, coffee cup, water bottle.
– Make it easy with 4 separate, clearly labeled bins (as above.)
– Keep recycling loose. Never bagged.
– Textiles in good condition go to charity, repurpose OR landfill.
– Flatten cardboard to maximise space.
– Food + liquids contaminate other stuff in the bin. Empty containers first.
– E-waste (electrical + batteries) start fires! (Check council, Officeworks or supermarket for drop-offs.)
– Look for packaging that’s recyclable, reusable or compostable;
PS: If in doubt, leave it out. We can’t unscramble the egg, so avoid “wish-cycling” (wish-cycling is doing it wrong + wishing the magic recycling fairy will separate it for you. She won’t.)
Visit https://www.thenewjoneses.com/ for more information and contact us to learn more about how we’re making a sustainable future possible for communities and businesses across Australia.
