Editorial: Food bins a small but collectively big step to tackle waste

People can put out their food scraps bin on their usual collection day. Photo / Hamilton City Council

EDITORIAL

More Aucklanders and other urban dwellers are getting used to a new routine - putting a small lime green-lidded bin out on rubbish collection days.

The routine begins with the collection of food scraps in pink bin-liner bags kept in a “kitchen caddy” for inside the house, which are then transferred to the outside to be put by the roadside.

Auckland’s rollout of scrap bins began earlier in the year in Waitākere and on the North Shore. More recently, residents in central areas received their bin kits. Next, they will be delivered to people in Manukau, Rodney and Franklin, and the rollout is due to wind up in November.

Papakura was the trial area for Auckland and has had a food waste collection process for five years. The council is hoping to drastically cut the amount of food waste sent to landfill. Other such collections are occurring in cities and towns around the country.

Some people might wonder what the point is of separating out their food waste from general rubbish and items to be recycled. It probably feels like an unnecessary extra and unwanted task to some.

But it is a massive global problem, with a third of all food estimated to go uneaten, even as hunger is also a worldwide challenge. Some 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions come from food waste.

Greater food efficiency is likely to become more important with climate change as more frequent storms, floods, fires and dry spells cause food supply problems.

Tomorrow, the United Nations holds a climate change summit in New York, and activists will be making their opinions known.

For individuals here, the best way they can have some influence is through their choices over transportation and energy efficiency, recycling and - with an election coming up - political pressure.

On general recycling, the Waste and Recycling Industry Forum puts forward ideas on how to improve the process in a Dialogue article today.

It suggests a public education campaign on recycling; better data and capability; new markets for recycled goods; the trialling of a digital container return scheme; and a reassessment of waste sector funding.

Kiwis can help themselves by taking food use more seriously, especially with prices high. A great deal of money is spent on food that is uneaten. By one estimate, Kiwis waste 100,000 tonnes of food annually, with the value of food waste per household being $1520 a year.

A trial collection in Palmerston North over five months found residents who took part halved their weekly rubbish bin waste. The trial, which began in March, involved about 228 households in 14 streets and saved 16,010 kilograms of food from landfill.

The Ministry for the Environment says 9 per cent of New Zealand’s methane emissions and 4 per cent of total emissions are from food and organic waste.

The food scraps are converted into renewable energy and biofertiliser. It has been argued, though, that transporting food scraps to remote processing plants adds to emissions.

There have been complaints over smells with the collection - the info booklet advises freezing the waste before binning it - insect interest in the scraps, and the annual cost. But there have also been positive comments on social media from people who like the new system.

The biggest slice of food waste comes from ordinary households. As with using the blue general recycling bins, it’s an area where everyone can help out with a small daily effort.