Labor pledges to establish food recycling service, free green bins by 2023

The Government has still not corrected the following two errors on its “Love Food Hate Waste” web page, and is still actively promoting the erroneous claims on that web page.

1. “ACT households waste up to $3,800 every year by throwing away food that could have been eaten.”
The National Food Waste strategy report clarifies that:
* In addition to “food that could have been eaten,” the $3,800 figure includes “inedible food, the parts of food that are not consumed because they are either unable to be consumed or are considered undesirable”;
* in addition to food that consumers throw away, the $3,800 includes “food that does not reach the consumer;” and
* the $3,800 figure applies to Australia as a whole, rather than specifically to any state or territory.

Also, $3,800 appears to be not a maximum figure (as implied on your web page), but rather an upper estimate of average food wastage. The National Food Waste strategy report says,”Food waste costs to households vary from $2,200 to $3,800.” Many households waste far less than $2,200 worth of food per year. $2,200 appears to be a lower estimate of average food wastage, rather than a minimum figure. Another possible interpretation is that $2,200 is the estimated cost, per household, of the food waste that occurs in the supply chain before food reaches the consumer.

2. “With 1/3 of all edible food produced globally wasted it is a big problem.”
* The claim on the linked Australian government web page does not claim that all of that wasted food is “edible.”
* The United Nations Environment Program web page puts the figure at only “roughly 30 per cent,” and makes it clear that the figure applies to both “wasted” food and “lost” food.

This has been available in Wagga Wagga for the past couple of years now and, apart from the usual whingers, it is working fine.

The Government’s Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate seems to be supporting Labor’s election campaign, with sponsored Facebook posts making unsubstantiated claims including “Food waste makes up 1/3 of our rubbish bins,” “ACT households waste up to $3,800 every year by throwing away food that could have been eaten” (the TOTAL is more important than the worst offending household), “In Australia, 74% of the food waste in landfill has come from households” (the supplied link suggests that the ACT figure is only 60%) and “1/3 of all edible food produced globally [is] wasted” (but how does the ACT compare?).
Most of these claims are at https://www.cityservices.act.gov.au/recycling-and-waste/love-food-hate-waste

Complaints about the odour from the MLRMC referred to Access Canberra always get the response “the source of the odour was undetermined” yet two ACT Rangers who have spoken to me about the odour have both said it is from the composing but it isn’t worth losing their jobs to report it as such.

Have you ever been to the compost operation at MLRMC?

CSC, this is a brilliant initative.

In 2012, the Labor/Green government purchased land to the north and east of the MLRMC which has ensured Canberra (and other towns in the region) will have another 30 years for landfill and recycling activities which all contribute odour, dust, fugitive emissions and other pollutants to the closest residents to the place.

The establishment of giant compost facility as outlined in this article at MLRMC (or anywhere else) will deliver more odours for kilometres. The Veolia landfill/bio-reactor at Tarago is 10kms from the Tarago village but they still cop the smell as outlined in Veolia’s 2019 report.

Are you sure this what Canberrans want, Mr Barr?

Crikey! I feel sorry for the residents of Macarthur…they will cop more stink!

Can someone explain to me why precisely we need a facility to process this stuff in Canberra, beyond some ridiuclous idea that regional solutions should be ruled out. There is a perfectly suitable facility up the train line at Woodlawn that would jump at taking food and organics waste – what a waste of money it would be to replicate the same service 50 kms away here.

https://www.veolia.com/anz/our-services/our-facilities/landfills/woodlawn-bioreactor-facility

Its about time we start working properly as a region on waste related matters, not as some pretend island.

Better to compost it. Particularly if you live in a house.