Minister for Environment and Conservations Paul Caica today announced six councils will receive more than $915,000 in State Government funding to introduce household food waste recycling.
Mr Caica said the announcement is part of a three-year $6.1m program which aims to divert more kitchen scraps from household rubbish bins.
“While South Australians demonstrate some of the best recycling credentials in the country, too much food waste is still being wasted,’’ he said.
“Of the 45 to 50 per cent of household waste that still goes to landfill, about half is food waste,’’ he said.
“In real terms an average household throws out about 3kg of food waste a week, which results in more than 90,000 tonnes of food waste a year.
“This food waste can be recovered and harvested as compost for South Australia’s vineyards, farmlands, crops, parks and gardens.”
Mr Caica said this rollout of household food waste recycling follows the successful completion of a pilot project earlier this year which involved 17,000 households across 10 South Australian councils.
“In the pilot, householders placed all kitchen scraps – including dairy and meat scraps – in bench-top containers which were then placed in the garden organics bin for fortnightly collection,’’ he said.
“The project was the largest pilot of its type undertaken in Australia and household satisfaction surveys showed there is strong support for food waste recycling, whether by using a bench top container system and/or combined with home composting.”
The State Government funding subsidises the cost of different bench top container systems and householder brochures and stickers.
Councils which have been awarded State Government funding for food waste recycling are;
• City of Campbell town $ 220,000
• City of Norwood Payneham and St Peters $ 157, 782
• City of Port Adelaide Enfield $ 411, 140
• City of Prospect $ 80,285
• Naracoorte Lucindale Council $ 29,250
• City of Whyalla $ 16,653