The City of Sydney implemented a Food Scraps Recycling Trial in 2019 as one of many initiatives designed to work towards reaching the target of ‘Zero Waste by 2030’, the long term goal of Council’s ‘Leave Nothing to Waste’ strategy. The Trial aims to reduce residential waste to landfill by providing residents in multi-unit (MUDs) and single-unit (SUDs) dwellings with an easy-to-use food scraps collection service.  Registered participants were to be provided with a benchtop kitchen caddy and a supply of compostable caddy liners to assist with easily collecting food scraps in the home. A total of 53 MUDs and 330 SUDs were to be included in the Trial, which will run for 12 months from the 1^st July 2019.

EnviroCom was engaged by Council to host ‘information stall’ pop-up events in a sample (20) of the participating MUDs ahead of the rollout of the Trial. The information stalls aimed to provide residents with a face-to-face opportunity to receive clarification around the purpose and logistics of the Trial (including the environmental benefits of food scraps recycling); to answer resident questions; and to encourage residents to register for the trial if they hadn’t previously done so.

Over 500 people were actively engaged across two full weekends of pop-ups and almost 90 new households signed up to the Trial. The vast majority of residents engaged demonstrated a high level of enthusiasm and support for the service and were particularly excited to hear that the food scraps would be used to create renewable energy, in addition to being converted into a high quality compost.