By Renee Patricio
Introduction - me!
Hello everyone! I am Renee Patricio and I am a study abroad student in Sydney, Australia!
Coming from a rural town in Western Pennsylvania, I have always had an attachment to the land around me. My connection with the surrounding nature made me contemplate how humans have impacted our environment, along with the land I have yet to see here.
At the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, I study data analytics, where I learn how to collect, clean, and visualize data.
With this degree, I hope to aid in the efforts for renewable energy, wildlife conservation, and pollution prevention. In my study abroad program, I have a wonderful opportunity to intern at the Sustainable House (1). Here, I hope to better understand sustainable living and inform the local Australian and my home town communities about the growing problem of food waste. (I’ll use U.S. spelling here.)
In these past five weeks I have learned so much about sustainability. Composting has become something that I do and think about each day.
The purpose of composting is to reuse the nutrients that food or any organic waste contains to create rich soil. I have never thought so deeply about food waste until now.
In my Pennsylvanian home my family puts leftover food, lawn clippings, and ash from our wood-burning stove into our backyard garden. This composting technique (without a bin) was something that opened my eyes. Our garden, as our neighbors say, “Always has the best tomatoes and vegetables growing out of it”. I thought that it was most likely linked to the organic materials we added to it. Creating good quality soil requires the help of many insects and animals, one of the most important being worms. In an article by Eli Kintisch, ancient worms have been linked to regulating the Earth’s oxygen composition, supplying just the right amounts to promote evolution (2). It is nice to know that a little earthworm can do so much good.
At Sydney’s Sustainable House I began to recognize the similarities between my home garden and the composting bins I now tend to.
Currently, I take care of the compost bins twice a week for the Chippendale community.
What I do is empty food waste into the compost bin (taken from one rotation bin in the street), mix the compost, and take out the rich, newly-made soil to use as fertilizer for the many plants in the community footpath gardens. I also add food and paper waste from my dorm’s shared kitchen into our rotating bin for composting! I manage 15 composting bins that are located around the Chippendale area with the help of my colleague, Kyle Day. Together, so far in four of our six weeks internships we have composted more than 625 kg of food waste, preventing 1472.5 kg of carbon emissions from going into Earth’s atmosphere.
You can track your own composting journey by using the same free coolseat calculator - download here. (3)
My intern work has led me to discover Sydney’s Inner West Council's plans to reduce food and garden organics. As the topic of food waste is new to me, these are the thoughts, opinions, and questions I have come up with involving the benefits that food waste reduction has. I would like to share with you the conclusions that I have gathered from my research and experience during this observation of the Inner West Council’s FOGO plan.
What is FOGO?
On March 8, 2022, the Inner West Council in inner Sydney, NSW, created a plan to end food waste (4). They decided that within the next few years, the Council will provide a Food Organics and Garden Organics waste recycling program (called FOGO) to every household in the Inner West. The Council says that this decision would make Inner West the “first council in Inner Sydney to dedicate its passion to solving the growing issue of food waste”.
But, I could not find data about - at what cost to ratepayers, what increased income to garbage collectors?
The Inner West Council wants to allow each home to engage in a food and garden waste recycling program in October 2023 (6). The council hopes to shift from “waste-thinking” to “resources-thinking”. Resource thinking is using materials to their fullest potential and recycling those matters. Instead of having food and garden organics rot in landfills creating carbon and methane emissions, residents are promised they can use the ‘waste’ effectively.
Council ramps up its war on food waste (4)
• Council’s ‘war on waste’
The plan is that every house in the Inner West will receive a green-topped kitchen caddy during September 2023 (6). In this caddy - a small container - food organics and garden organics will be collected weekly by the council.
There are some questions for this FOGO plan:
Where is the waste going?
How much does it cost ratepayers?
Will garbage rates reduce or increase?
Will ratepayers have to buy the compost if the food waste is composted?
Where is the Data on FOGO?
What is lacking in this FOGO plan is data and explanations of how the ratepayers will be affected and where the food waste will go.
As ratepayers pay their rates to the council, the Council will use their money to pay their staff and contractor services.
Waste collectors are paid to remove the waste materials, but can also get money from ratepayers who wish to get their composted food back and will have to buy it.
First, how much do the ratepayers pay?
Under Section 496 of the Local Government Act 1993, rates include an annual domestic waste management (DWM) charge for residential waste collection and management (7). The Inner West Council says;
“This charge funds Council's household recycling service, green waste service, garbage collection and disposal, clean-up service and lane cleaning. It includes landfill tipping fees, as well as the NSW Government Section 88 landfill levy which increases each year as part of the NSW Government's strategy to reduce landfill” (7).
This means that rates are increasing for these services of waste collection and management, including for FOGO.
There are approximately 186,000 residents in the Inner West Council’s jurisdiction (8), but what exactly does this mean for their waste management and collection?
In 2021, The Census recorded 85,455 dwellings in the Inner West area (9). Each of these households must pay a minimum rate of $850 per household (10).
This means the Council receives an estimated $72,636,750 from household rates per year.
In addition to this amount, the household’s domestic waste management charges also need to be factored in (7).
Here are three examples of residential households in the Inner West region, priced at different land values and located in different areas. By using the Inner West’s rates calculator, we can see the expenses that specific dwellings must pay (11).
• Household rates fluctuate but waste bills stay constant
In these tables, we can see that the rates of each household fluctuate, but the waste costs stay constant.
This rating system means that no matter how little waste you throw into the bin, you still pay a fixed price.
Detailed in domestic waste management pricing are bin options that change the fixed waste collection price per annum according to the size of your bin.
• Domestic waste management charges (7)
You can see here that even when you create no collectible waste, you must pay $238.00 per year regardless of you not putting out your bin, having nothing or very little in your bin or having a full bin.
Not all people make the same amount of waste, including food or organic waste.
Let’s suppose that a household that composts has significantly less waste to be collected; tough, they are required to pay their fixed waste collection rates.
With FOGO ratepayers will be paying double for their food waste, whether or not you produce food waste or not.
This is because ratepayers are paying the Council rates, which then go toward paying for services and contractors (the waste collectors).
The waste collectors take the food waste, but what do they do with it?
Because it is not known from the Inner West Council’s plan where the food organics and garden organics go after collection, who is to say where nutrient-rich soil or compost purchased by the ratepayer is coming from - perhaps its from their own food waste they’ve already paid to have collected?
This recycled composting material could actually be from their own household. Potentially, ratepayers could be paying for nutrients that had been sourced directly from their house, neighborhood, or Inner West region.
Tackling Australia’s Food Waste
The Methods of Reduction
Let us take a deeper look at the growing problem of food waste. When he was a Minister for Environment and Energy, Hon Josh Frydenberg said:
“Food waste is a global challenge that has environmental, economic, and social impacts” (12).
According to the Australian Government’s National Food Waste Strategy, the economy loses $20 billion each year due to food waste (12).
Worldwide, food used for human consumption generates 1 billion tonnes of food waste per year, costing the global economy $940 billion USD.
• The Food Waste Challenge (12)
The Collection
One important factor in food waste is how it is collected.
From my experience in a rural town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, we use the method of fixed-priced waste collection. This means that the county you reside in has a designated service contractor that you pay directly for trash collection. Our payments to this service are quarterly (four times a year) and our trash is collected weekly, with no recycling. However, this is not a model of how trash collection should be handled.
The Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) waste strategy is what the world should be focusing on. This strategy is growing and emerging as a success story in the U.S.
PAYT charges residents for the amount of waste they produce, rather than having a fixed price system.
The PAYT collection prices create a direct incentive to generate less waste (13). As the residents have to pay rates based on the number of bags or cans they generate, it will encourage them to decrease their amount of waste. The United States Environmental Protection Agency says that the pay-as-you-throw approach “encompasses three interrelated components that are key to successful community programs” (13). These are:
1. Environmental Sustainability - increasing recycling & reduction of waste, less natural resource extraction, and substantial decreases in greenhouse gas emissions.
2. Economic Sustainability - generating revenues needed for communities to cover waste costs and subsequent recycling and composting programs.
3. Equity - endorsing fairness as the most important variable to successfully reduce waste.
These three elements are effective ways to reduce the world’s food waste.
In locations such as Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, and Portland, Maine in America, it was found that the PAYT programs are “one of local governments’ most effective tools for reducing waste, controlling waste disposal costs and giving residents an incentive to participate in recycling and composting programs” (14).
In the United States, we have observed the benefits of waste collection, where household rates are lowered because of the reduction of food waste.
Pay as you throw in Australia
Pay-as-you-throw programs are not a new proposition in Australia.
On October 9, 2016, Infrastructure Victoria suggested that a revision should be made to the waste disposal pricing, citing a PAYT scheme (15).
Dr. Trevor Thornton, the hazardous materials management expert from Deakin University said that the current waste management system was unfair to households who produced small amounts of waste.
“Dr. Thornton believed a pay-by-weight scheme could encourage greater recycling and composting. He said composting would reduce the level of food waste, which was the heaviest component in the domestic waste stream” (15).
It was also recommended by Infrastructure Victoria to promote organic composting at the household level.
In a blog called “Empowering the Citizens to Pursue Waste Reduction” Marie Neubrander explains the importance of coming together as a community to reduce pollution and waste (16).
Marie writes,
“As a society, the cost that we will face if waste generation continues at its current rate is more than financial: we are risking Earth as we know it. We hope that the financial incentives found in PAYT serve as strong motivation for environmental good.“
May I suggest the Inner West should advocate for less waste and organic collection and, instead, encourage environmentally-friendly and cost-friendly proven solutions to reduce household waste? The best, and proven way to do this, is by user pays, or Pay as you throw.
By increasing the incentives and the motivation for communities to reduce waste the Inner West and its residents together can save more money and benefit the environment.
The Disposal
The main ways to get rid of food waste are by composting, incineration, or landfill decomposition.
• Waste disposal options (17)
You may be wondering how composting can reduce carbon emissions, so using an informational blog called “Composting and CO2 Equivalent Emissions” by Marie Neubrander, I will briefly describe the impacts of carbon emissions and composting (18).
Earth has a carbon cycle that balances the way carbon circulates on the planet; ‘carbon’ is in much of Earth - timber, soil, coal, oil, diamonds and many other things. When carbon is displaced from its natural location, often due to human activities, it caused to the “greenhouse effect”, much like in a greenhouse which is heated to grow plants. The planet’s greenhouse effect occurs when carbon dioxide traps the sun’s heat inside the Earth’s atmosphere like a blanket, which makes Earth’s temperatures rise and causes the natural climate to change.
When food and garden organics are composted, the carbon dioxide is reused by the plants as nutrition instead of being solely released into the atmosphere.
Marie says, “When food waste that would have otherwise been thrown out and sent to a landfill is composted, these potent methane emissions are largely avoided.” Another way to dispose of food waste is by burning it for energy. In a blog called “Is Burning Food for Energy Efficient?" by Alyssa Noble and Arynn Rogers, they show how burning is not the best way to reduce carbon emissions (20). They write, “Composting is an energy-efficient way to return and recycle nutrients to our mother Earth. To compost, you won’t need a multi-million dollar facility that potentially pollutes the surroundings.”
• Composting Guide (21)
Analyzing the Statistics
Food waste statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics are useful.
Firstly, the Waste Account of Australia shows the experimental estimates of waste in units of tonnes (22).
After downloading the Excel spreadsheet (found at the bottom of the website), I observed that Food Organics are a significantly larger proportion of the waste category, following behind Ash, Hazardous Waste, Rubble, Concrete, and Steel. When comparing the data between Masonry materials and Organics, we can see that households produce more tonnes of organic waste, as construction and industry contribute to the usage of masonry materials.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics Excel Spreadsheet (22)
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has used Power BI to illustrate the yearly collected data in bar graph form (22). By looking at these visualizations, you can see that most of the data stay relatively constant; however, the materials from masonry and organics are steadily increasing by 2 or more million tonnes each measurement period.
Moreover, this important graph shows the yearly amount of waste collected overall in Australia. The category of organics is the second highest waste material on this graph. Each year, households create around 15+ million tonnes of waste.
• Household waste by waste material
Additionally, this graph shows the waste generated by Australian households. We can observe that the largest category of waste is Organic Waste, having more than 6 million tonnes collected each year. It is also shown that Paper & Cardboard are the second largest category of household waste in Australia. In the Chippendale footpath gardens, we are using paper from households and cafes to speed up the food waste’s decaying process. This means we are and can reduce organics and paper & cardboard waste at the same time.
For the Future
Something must be done to reduce household food and garden waste.
Whether it is the Inner West Council’s FOGO plan or community recycling program, we must come together and take the initiative to begin change. By starting the efforts to reduce organic waste, the Australian economy, society, and the environment will benefit.
Why Data is Important: “Data Thinking”
Data can portray the direction of the past and perhaps of the future.
We may use data to find solutions to fix foreseen issues or struggles.
In a blog by Glen Rabie he details how data leads to behavioral changes (23).
After reflecting on the Australian government’s stance on COVID-19 data, he wished that the administration had shared some procedures for action. Glen states,
“Without a roadmap to tell us when we will be successful, people are left to make our own choices about how to behave”.
Data is a powerful decision-making tool. By using data we can prevent, prepare, and calculate what needs to be done in the future.
Glen Rabie concludes that governments and service providers must provide people with data and the context driving their and our decision-making.
By taking the individual on a journey with data we may be guided to understand the purpose of the organization and how our lives, jobs and actions help drive performance. He continues,
“They then know when they're performing well and can see the impact their behavior has on the organization”.
Is FOGO a Success?
I appreciate that the Inner West Council is taking action to reduce the growing problem of food and garden organics. But is FOGO the best option for Australia or even Earth?
After my efforts to get information directly from the Council, I have made these conclusions.
In my opinion, and despite there being no data, its likely the FOGO plan is not going to be effective.
After seeing the good that comes from composting in the local community of Chippendale, I can not justify the Inner West Council’s decision to take food waste instead of providing and encouraging the community to participate in more eco-friendly practices at home and in the neighborhood.
I believe what is best for the community is using food and garden organics to grow nutritious fruits and vegetables. While living off the land sustainably and decreasing organic waste collection, you are aiding in the efforts of reducing greenhouse emissions.
What the Inner West should consider doing is incentivizing lower waste collection amounts and supporting community compost options.
The Department of the Environment and Energy said that Australian food waste is managed in 10 different ways. I believe the most important ways are:
Supporting efficiency and innovation in agriculture,
Conducting household education and community initiatives,
Diverting food waste from the commercial food sector,
Finding incentives for alternatives to disposing of food waste in landfill,
Creating value from food waste, and
Standardising data to measure food waste and track its reduction
How food waste is managed in Australia (24)
This collective composting action will engage the Inner West to involve themselves in community work and benefit Australia and the world by living more sustainably. By composting, the Council can both worry and pay less for waste collection services. Also, residents from the Inner West do not have to pay more for fresh vegetables and fruits. This is an environmentally-friendly option to reduce food organics and garden organics. Motivating the community to get involved in sustainable practices will effectively aid in the mission to reduce Australia’s food waste and emissions.
The Initiative in Chippendale
Art Markman from Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center established a six-step system to help people reach their goals and to cause change (25). The steps are:
1. Lead by example
2. Suggest goals
3. Give the right feedback
4. Support good habits
5. Take advantage of laziness
6. Develop support networks
These steps to achieve successful change are often not discussed enough in businesses, organizations, and communities. By leading as an example, you are showing that others can follow your path. Art says,
“If you engage in the same behaviors you expect of others, then you’re exhibiting the highest form of authenticity.”
For example, even if your neighbors are not composting, take your food waste to the composting bins because that action will spark their curiosity and interest in composting.
When suggesting goals, make them achievable, as motivation is a key component for long-term success.
Some of our future goals are to have more coolseat composting to contain Chippendale’s food waste and to engage in local community work to spread awareness of organic waste reduction. Our ultimate goal at the Sustainable House is to end Chippendale’s food waste.
Giving feedback to improve work and encouraging their behavior to create good habits is also important. You must realize that not everyone has the means to continue change and make adjustments to have more ways that people can get involved, even at home. We keep many options for sustainable living and at-home activity. This could be by creating a windowsill garden, watching informational gardening videos, or reading Michael Mobbs’ website to learn more tips to reduce food waste. Whether your contributions are large or small, the dedication to saving the world starts with your actions. Any efforts to reduce your carbon footprint, recycle resources, or help the environment are essential and very appreciated in this journey of sustainability.
Lastly, developing a support network will bring the community together, engaging them to change behavior.
Presently, many of Chippendale’s local residents and cafes are participating in the mission to reduce food waste. By bringing their kitchen scraps, lawn cuttings, and other organic materials to the Coolseat composting bins, we are collectively working toward saving carbon emissions (26). The composting material we generate comes straight from the Chippendale community which directly supplies the community with healthy footpath gardens, cool and shady areas, and a hopeful solution to end food waste.
I hope the commitment and dedication of the Chippendale community will inspire many individuals to reduce or to end their food waste.
People, communities, and councils, I suggest, should work with each other to achieve the goal of reducing food waste, greenhouse houses, and human impact on the environment. For the sake of our future and those who come after us, we should make decisions that empower the Earth’s inhabitants.
Renee Patricio
Intern, Sustainable House
References
1. https://www.sustainablehouse.com.au/
2. https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-worms-may-have-saved-earth
3. https://www.coolseats.com.au/calculator
4. https://www.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/about/news/media-releases/2022-media-releases/council-ramps-up-its-war-on-food-waste
5. https://www.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/live/waste-and-recycling/household-bins/food-recycling/food-recycling-for-apartments
6. https://www.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/about/news/media-releases/2023-media-releases/food-recycling-coming-to-every-house-in-the-inner-west
7. https://www.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/live/information-for-residents/rates
8. https://www.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/explore/getting-around/our-community/community-profile#:~:text=Inner%20West%20Council%20covers%20approximately,and%20Croydon%20in%20the%20West.
9. https://profile.id.com.au/inner-west/population#:~:text=The%20Census%20usual%20resident%20population,average%20household%20size%20of%202.28.
10. https://cityhubsydney.com.au/2021/05/ipart-approves-inner-west-councils-proposed-minimum-rates/#:~:text=Rates%20will%20be%20calculated%20in,across%20the%20whole%20council%20area.
11. https://www.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/live/information-for-residents/rates/rates-calculator
12. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/national-food-waste-strategy.pdf
13. https://archive.epa.gov/wastes/conserve/tools/payt/web/html/index.html
14. https://theconversation.com/what-is-pay-as-you-throw-a-waste-expert-explains-173828#:~:text=Many%20cities%20and%20towns%20around,for%20every%20bag%20of%20trash.
15. https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/pay-as-you-throw-rubbish-scheme-proposed-to-cut-household-waste-20161009-gry8vz.html
16. https://www.sustainablehouse.com.au/michaels-blog/2022/3/14/empowering-citizens-to-pursue-waste-reduction
17. https://byjus.com/biology/waste-disposal/
18. https://www.sustainablehouse.com.au/michaels-blog/2022/3/1/p3t6z1j6asg1qq2h40mqe0p141ml1z
19. https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/the-greenhouse-effect
20. https://www.sustainablehouse.com.au/michaels-blog/2021/7/25/is-burning-food-for-energy-efficient
21. https://www.fast-growing-trees.com/pages/composting-guide
22. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/environment/environmental-management/waste-account-australia-experimental-estimates/latest-release
23. https://www.yellowfinbi.com/blog/use-data-to-change-behaviors
24. https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/protection/waste/publications/infographic-how-food-wate-is-managed-in-australia
25. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_ways_to_help_people_change
26. https://www.coolseats.com.au/