By Goya Dmytryshchak
Turning Hobsons Bay’s household food waste into compost is a move welcomed by Altona Community Gardens co-founder Peter Weaver.
The council will this summer introduce four bins per household, including a food organics and garden organics (FOGO) bin collected weekly.
Food waste including fruit, vegetables, eggshells, bones, rice, pasta, seafood and food-spoiled paper will be used to make fertiliser and soil improver.
Mr Weaver said he had three compost areas in his home garden, while a new community garden in Den Dulk Reserve may have a community area to drop off food scraps. He said he hoped some of the council’s compost could be used for the community garden.
“I think it’s a great idea and it’s long overdue,” Mr Weaver said of the new four bin system, which includes rubbish, glass and other recyclables.
“My wife’s Japanese and they’ve had a rubbish issue for a lot of years because of the density of the population.
“Whenever I go to Japan, the rubbish pick-up is so complicated because there’s about six or seven different categories.
“It makes it a resource whereas we’ve just been so lazy that all of our stuff just goes in the same bin and we’re not good at doing it and we put stuff in there that shouldn’t be in there.
“They need to divide it up more so what is picked up is a clean asset that can be sold on to a third company.”
