By Luke Voogt
About 1500 Lara households will take part in a year-long, $150,000 council trial of a new food waste collection service beginning next month.
Windermere ward councillor and Lara resident Kylie Grzybek said she was confident her community would embrace the trial.
“The Lara community is doing us all a great service, but I think they’ll also be glad to be the first in our region to experience this new collection,” she said.
Participating households will receive a 60-litre orange-lidded food waste bin, a small kitchen benchtop caddy and certified compostable caddy liners in late October.
Kerbside collections of the bin, coinciding with weekly waste collection, will begin on November 5.
Food waste accounts for 34 per cent of the average Geelong household’s rubbish bin and is one of the main causes of greenhouse gas emissions, according to council.
More than 82 per cent of respondents to council’s Waste and Resource Recovery Strategy 2020-30 survey stated they would support the service.
State government has also mandated that councils must implement food waste collection before 2030.
Council will evaluate the trial in late 2022, with plans to gradually introduce the service to other parts of greater Geelong in 2023 and the entire municipality by early 2024.
The trial follows the purchase of two in-vessel composting units – including one supported by a $250,000 grant from Sustainability Victoria.
The units will allow council workers to process up to 2000 tonnes of food waste each year, significantly reducing the amount ending up in landfill.
Council’s circular economy portfolio chair Belinda Moloney said the initiative would help the environment while creating a valuable resource.
“Instead of taking up valuable landfill space and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, the food waste can be processed into compost to be used in our parks or by farmers to grow more food,” Cr Moloney said.
“The targeted trial will give us great insight into how we can deliver an innovative full-scale food waste collection service right across greater Geelong.”
Council allocated a budget of $150,000 for the trial, a City Hall spokesperson confirmed.
