Composting and Sustainable Disposal

Most Australians put their food waste in the bin, but this common practice isn’t an ideal environmental choice. Food waste sealed in plastic garbage bags and sent to landfill breaks down in an anaerobic environment, releasing methane into the atmosphere – a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Luckily, there are plenty of sustainable disposal alternatives. Composting is simple and puts your foods’ nutrients back into the earth. If you don’t have space for a compost bin, many community gardens have shared composts that the community can access, while worm farms are also great small space alternative.

If none of these are an option, Wollongong, Kiama and Shellharbour councils all have FOGO bin systems – where food waste is put in biodegradable bags, then into your green waste bin – making sustainable disposal simple for everyone.  Fogo bins take a wide range of items that often can't be composted at home, such as bones.