2018-05-23
Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) — I would like to congratulate the City of Glen Eira which from the first of this month has introduced the putting of food waste and food scraps in its green waste collection, which has been running for years. It of course collected garden waste, but from now on in the City of Glen Eira we will be able to put fruit and vegetable scraps, used papers, paper towels, coffee grounds, dairy leftovers, eggshells, meat scraps and bones, bread, pasta and rice in the green waste collection. The mayor of the City of Glen Eira, Cr Tony Athanasopoulos, has said that the City of Glen Eira will be the first council in Victoria's south-east to introduce food waste recycling. We know that food waste makes up about 40 per cent of the waste that goes to landfill.
This is a welcome initiative, and I know other councils are lining up to follow, but it is pretty well overdue in Australia because it occurs already in the United States, Europe and places like South Korea, and has done for years. It will reduce waste to landfill. It will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But I would like to say that what is needed to follow is organic waste collection on the streets. When I was in the United States a couple of years ago I noticed in the city of Seattle that they have solar composting bins for organic waste in the street. That is the next benchmark for Victoria.