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For further information please review Council's Waste Services Guide.

For enquiries about new Food and Garden Waste Services please contact Council on 6333 6111.

Never lose track of bin night again.  Download the FREE app Bathurst Waste Services Guide from the Apple Store or Google Play for a collection calendar and much more information.

Bathurst Regional Council introduced the kerbside food and garden waste collection on 4 April 2016.

For the first 34 months of the service 10,436,280 (more than 10.4 million kilograms) of food and garden waste was diverted from landfill for composting up to the end of January 2019.

The weekly collection service has collected the following amounts of food and garden waste since the service was introduced:

 
To the end of January 2019

The Food & Garden Waste Service is delivering major environmental improvements across the Bathurst Region and brings Council in line with many leading Councils across New South Wales.

The weekly green lid bin complements the existing mixed waste and recycling services.

Click here for information on healthy bins

Household Waste Services

Food and garden waste collected via the green lid food and garden waste bin will be sent to a purpose-built facility in Blayney for re-processing. The bin will be collected weekly and will be used for the disposal of all household food including meat and dairy items as well as garden organics including grass clippings and prunings.

The fortnightly yellow lid recycling collection service and the weekly red lid collection service has remained unchanged.

Council has produced a number of information brochures and flyers designed to provide information for residents about the new Food and Garden Waste Collection.

These important materials include:

What goes in the food and garden waste bin?, to view this document please click here

A Frequently Asked Questions document, to view this please click here

The January 2016 ratepayers newsletter information insert, to view this please click here

A detailed resident brochure which is being delivered with the new food and garden waste bin, to view this please click here

Use of Bags

Council is requesting that residents do not use bags of any kind in the food and garden waste bin and there are a range of reasons for this.

One of the main items leading to contamination in the recycling bin is the plastic bags, which should only be placed in the general waste bin at home or in the specially marked bin at participating supermarkets.

Firstly there are a number of different kinds of bags available plastic, bio-degradable and compostable. Bags can be expensive and in fact represent waste themselves even though the bags break down the packaging may
not.

Although the same collection contractor, JR Richards, collects food and garden waste in other Council areas where compostable bags are used, the facilities at the receiving depot where the compost is made are quite
different. At ANL in Blayney employees undertake an initial sort for contaminates by hand and bags can hide incorrect items, mixed waste and hazardous materials. Therefore Council cannot encourage the use of bags and any plastic bags will be sent to landfill.

Particularly wet or odorous food waste can wrapped in newspaper and be placed in the food and garden waste bin or can be placed in a plastic bag in the general waste bin.

Council has provided the kitchen caddy to make it easier to transport food waste to the bin outside, resident may choose to line the caddy with paper towel, newspaper or junk mail to absorb some liquid and suppress
odours. There are some excellent tips to keeping your bin fresh which can be found here.

Background Information

The major findings from Council’s can be viewed in survey - Community Waste Management Survey

• Garbage and recycling bins are predominately ‘Usually fairly full’ on collection day
• 59 percent of respondents put garden organic waste in their garbage and 51 percent compost it
• 81 percent of respondents put food waste in their garbage and 31 percent feed it to animals
• 85 percent of respondents support Council trying to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill by collecting food and garden waste for composting on a weekly basis
• 32 percent of respondents could not manage fortnightly garbage collections, whilst the remaining 68 percent could manage, but with varying degrees of impact
• 74 percent of respondents have in-principle support for the idea that Council introduce new systems that reduce waste to landfill and increase recycling and composting, even if slightly more expensive in the short term

The key results from Council’s audit can be viewed here Domestic Kerbside Waste Audit

Bin presentation rates were as follows:

• Waste 86.6%
• Recycling 81.1%

The mean bin proportion full for waste was 60% which ties in with the average bin contents of 13 kg per household. The mean bin proportion full for recycling was 68%.

The overall organics in the waste bin was 64%.

The waste stream had 64% organic material by weight. Food made up the highest proportion at nearly 30%, with garden organics making up over 24%. Other organics made up nearly 8%, and soiled paper over 2%, giving an average organics yield of 8.32kg per bin.

In regards to recycling material in the waste stream, the following percentages were recorded:

• Recyclable plastics 2.6%
• Recyclable glass 3.4%
• Recyclable metal packaging and other 1.90%
• Recyclable paper and cardboard 6.78%

The overall recycling in waste bin was 14.70%, and the overall average weight was 1.9kg.

Observations highlighted that most of the garbage bags contained recyclable material that was widespread and was not isolated to some households.

In summary, there is good opportunity for Bathurst residents to improve their current recycling rates, and be able to reduce waste to landfill somewhat significantly in the following years with a three bin kerbside system. In particular, organics and food are making up a large proportion of recyclable material, along with household recyclables. This presents a total of over 70% diversion rate that could be reached with the introduction of a weekly organics service, and further education in regards to household comingled recycling.

Composting

Composting at home is an option to recycle some food scraps and garden greenwaste however there are some items that should not be placed in a a home compost bin such as meat, dairy or weeds. For more information, please see the general information leaflet on composting.

Worm Farming

Worms like moist conditions, in a mix of soil and compost, not too wet, and not too dry.  Keep your worms out of the sun and in a shady area, with a bit of shelter from wet weather. Worms can only eat certain foods and cannot tolerate spicy or citrus foods. For more information please see the general information leaflet on Worm Farming.

Correct Disposal of Organic Waste

There are many items that can be placed in the new food and green waste kerbside bin commencing from April 2016 that cannot be placed in a compost bin, worm farm or fed to chickens. Please see the detailed list below however the primary items of consideration are; meat including bones, dairy and paper/cardboard all of which can be placed in the lime green bin but cannot be broken down by composting, worms or chickens.