Rose Childe Kiama Oct 14, 2014 21:48 pm

I am working for a local government in NSW, Australia which has been gradually introducing kerbside collection of food waste as part of its existing green waste collection. We are about to roll out the program to an area which has several multi-unit dwellings (blocks of town houses or flats). This presents some new issues as these properties do not have an individual green waste bin for each unit. The likely scenario is that they will share one or two green waste bins, which all residents can dispose of their food waste into. For this reason (shared bins which do not have individual responsibility for cleaning), these dwellings will be supplied with compostable bags to contain their food waste, therefore avoiding mess in the bins. The distribution of these compostable bags is looking to be complicated. They will need to receive a yearly supply, but we are unsure as to how to get that to them? Delivering door-to-door is very labour intensive, posting would be expensive because of the weight. We were thinking of a voucher system where they cash in a ticket every year at the waste depot etc. for their supply? Does anyone have any experience with this type of program? I would love to hear what has worked and what hasn't. Also, I would be interested in any experiences with other aspects of kerbside collection of food organics.
Thank you!

Rose Childe
Waste Management Projects Assistant
Kiama Municipal Council
Australia