Welcome

Recycling food and garden waste is easy when you have a green bin.

Most Councils in the Northern Rivers region now offer a green bin service to their residents* (Balllina Shire, Byron Shire, Clarence Valley, Lismore City, Richmond Valley and Tweed Shire.

If you are fortunate to have a green bin service that recycles food and garden waste, and are using it regularly like many other households across our region, then know that you are contributing to a better environment. That’s good for everyone!

Everybody is doing it! Make sure you do too:

More than 97% of people think it is important to recycle. Green bins make it so easy for everybody to recycle food and garden waste. If you live in Ballina Shire, Byron Shire, Lismore City, Richmond Valley or Tweed Shire, the contents of your green bins are recycled on-site at the Lismore Resource Recovery and Recycling Centre. If you live in Clarence Valley, the contents of your green bins are recycled locally at the Grafton Resource Recovery Centre.

Good for our environment:

Recycling food and garden waste through our green bins or home composting is a great environmental opportunity. It saves water, energy and greenhouse gas emissions. Dumping food and garden waste into our red bins which end up in landfill is not cool for our environment. When food and garden waste breaks down in landfill it creates methane – a greenhouse gas 22 times more potent than Carbon dioxide (CO2). In 2016-2017, householders across the Northern Rivers collectively diverted 27,000 tonnes of food and garden waste from landfill by using their green bins. Let’s aim for even more this year!

Good for our farmers:

Our food and garden waste is recycled into compost which is then used by our farmers to grow the food we eat. How cool is that! We definitely love our little recycling mantra: Keep it coming ‘round. Watch our video to see the process:

 

Keep it coming round: Let’s all recycle our food and garden waste.

In The Kitchen

How to collect food waste in the kitchen

The easiest way of collecting your kitchen waste at home is to have a separate collection container, close to wear you prepare food. These are known as a kitchen tidy bin or kitchen caddy.
Continue reading “In The Kitchen”

Home Composting

Another great way of recycling your food and garden waste at home is by home composting. Councils and hardware stores sell compost bins and worm farms. They are quite easy to manage, and a great activity to involve the whole family. Most of the same rules apply to home composting as to recycling with your green bin. However, we do advise not to place meat or seafood or citrus into a home compost or worm form.

Contact your local Council for further information.