Reducing food waste starts at home – plan meals, use leftovers and compost food scraps where possible. Composting, mulching and keeping organics out of landfill improves soil, reduces emissions and supports our shire's transition to FOGO collections and local composting.
Reduce food waste by planning meals, using leftovers and composting scraps. Learn more below, including Mallacoota Kitchen to Compost.
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Composting Food Waste
Over a third of all waste collected in our shire's general rubbish (red lid) bins is household food waste. Food waste put in the red lin bin ends up in landfill – and it doesn't need to.
With careful planning you can reduce food waste and reuse leftovers before recycling. The Great Unwaste is a program run by End Food Waste Australia, which provides information on efficiently planning meals and understanding how to safely store and use leftovers.
Using backyard chickens, worm farms, compost or bokashi bins at home is a quick and easy way to help reduce this amount of kitchen food scraps going to landfill. Worm juice and castings are super rich in nutrients and will boost the health of your garden. Planning meals around what’s in the fridge (rather than buying new ingredients for a recipe) can also help use up older vegies and reduce food waste.
Composting Garden Mulch
Mulching green waste at home is another easy way to reduce waste while improving the soils in your garden. Home-composted green waste also increases soil moisture and reduce weeds by smothering them. Simply shred or chop leaves, grass clippings and twigs into small pieces and spread evenly over the ground. Over time it will decompose and nourish the soil.
Composting Pet Poo
- DO – Bury it in a hole in your garden.
- DO – Put it in a pet poo compost bin or bokashi bin.
- DO – Wrap it in newspaper and put in your general rubbish (red lid) bin.
- DON’T – Put in the garden organics (green lid) bin!
What goes in my garden organics bin?
Find out what goes in your garden organics (Green Lid) bin.
See our A-Z Waste – Where to Next? interactive online guide for detailed advice on where items should go.
NOT in Green Waste: Branches and tree stumps (≥ 30cm diameter), painted or treated wood, paper or cardboard, pallets, weeds, plastic bags or pots, contaminated garden waste, kitty litter, pet manure.
Green Waste Programs
Mallacoota Kitchen to Compost Program
The Mallacoota Kitchen to Compost program began in 2010 to reduce organic waste going to landfill by collecting food and garden waste and composting it locally.
It is an important collaboration between Council, Gippsland Regional Waste Management Group and the Mallacoota community.
Benefits include:
- Reduced greenhouse gas emissions (particularly methane) that are produced by organic waste decomposing in landfill.
- Reduced pressure on landfill capacity by removing organics from the waste stream, which extends the life of landfill and can lead to long-term cost savings.
- Nutrient-rich compost created from organic waste can be used in parks and gardens and landfill rehabilitation, to improve soil structure, retain more water and improve soil health.
- For those already composting at home, this service accepts harder-to-compost items that the worms won’t touch – meat, seafood, bones, citrus, cooked food, oils and fats, diseased plants, weeds, excess lawn clippings and leaves.
Kitchen to Compost accepts:
- Kitchen scraps – fruit and vegetables, meat and bones, fish and seafood (plus shells), dairy, pasta and rice, bread and pastries, teabags and coffee grounds
- Garden waste – lawn clippings, pruning, weeds, rose trimmings, twigs and branches (<75mm diameter)
- Other – Tissues and paper towels, hair.
NOT ACCEPTED
- Synthetic products such as plastics, flowerpots, hoses, nappies and non-compostable plastic bags.
- Industrial compostable bags.
- Kitty litter and pet waste.
- Vacuum dust or lint.
Kitchen to Compost tips:
- Line your kitchen caddy with paper towel or a small folded piece of newspaper.
- Collect food scraps in your kitchen caddy. Empty into your garden organics (green lid) bin.
- Put bin out fortnightly for collection (alternate weeks to mixed recycling (yellow lid) bin).
- Caddies – available for free at Mallacoota Service Centre.
- Bin liners – only use certified compostable liners with the home compostable logo
Please DON’T USE plastic bin liners as this contaminates the compost with microplastics.
- New garden organics bins - see Bin Services
Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) Program
Weekly FOGO Collection
Council will be introducing its new Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) weekly kerbside bin collections progressively during 2028. This will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by diverting organic waste from landfill. Click here to view implementation timeframes.
Bairnsdale FOGO Composting Facility
Our proposed Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) Composting Facility will embody circular economy principles – turning waste into value and closing the loop between urban and rural systems.
Located next to Bairnsdale Landfill in Forge Creek, the facility will be able to process up to 25,000 tonnes of food and garden organics each year, with the potential to reduce future landfill emissions by up to 97%.
Kitchen to Compost is a program operating in Mallacoota that collects food and garden waste, and composts it locally. Beginning in 2010 as a collaboration between Council, Gippsland Regional Waste Management Group, and the Mallacoota community, the program aims to reduce the amount of organic waste in landfills.
Kitchen to Compost offers numerous benefits for both residents and the environment.
- It reduces landfill waste. In East Gippsland, 44% of all waste sent to landfill is organic (according to Council's 2021 waste audit). When organic waste decomposes in landfills, it produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Recycling organics through composting or other methods helps mitigate these emissions and reduces the environmental impact.
- By removing organics from the waste stream, the strain on our landfill capacity is also reduced, and the life of the landfill is extended, which can lead to cost savings in the long term.
- An otherwise wasted resource is salvaged and turned into nutrient-rich compost. The average East Gippsland household generates about 7kg of compostable waste per week. That equates to more than 100kg of mature compost per year.
- This compost can be used to enrich soil in gardens and landscaping, improving soil structure, water retention, and nutrient content. Council uses the compost in parks and gardens, as well as in landfill rehabilitation.
What can I put in Kitchen to Compost?
The organics bin will accept garden waste and lawn clippings like a normal green waste bin, but it will also accept any kitchen organic material.
The following is a guide to what may be put in the bin:
- Fruit and vegetable scraps
- Meat scraps and bones
- Fish and seafood (incl. shells)
- Dairy products
- Pasta and rice
- Bread and bread products
- Teabags and coffee grounds
- Tissues and paper towels
- Pet manures and compostable kitty litter
- Lawn clippings
- Garden prunings (including weeds and rose trimmings)
- Twigs and branches under 75mm in diameter
- Hair
What can’t I put in the organics bin?
Synthetic products such as plastics, flowerpots, hoses, nappies and non-compostable plastic bags cannot go in the organics bin. Fragments of these products will eventually end up in the processed compost, resulting in spreading microplastics through the environment.
How it works
Collect your food scraps in your caddy.
You don't have to use a liner, but if you'd like to, certified compostable liners are available at Mallacoota Service Centre, supermarkets and Bendigo Bank. It is important to use certified home compostable liners - plastic bin liners contaminate the end product. You can also use a piece of paper towel to line their kitchen caddy, or even folded newspaper.
Once your caddy is full, empty the contents into your green-lidded wheelie bin.
While you're out in the garden, perhaps doing some pruning ahead of fire season or just a general spruce up, you can pop your green waste directly into your green bin (excluding branches more than 75mm in diameter).
Your green-lidded wheelie bin is collected fortnightly from your kerbside, alternating with recycling.
I’d like to request a green bin
You need to contact us to set up your new waste service for your property.
You can set up your service by filling in our Waste Service Request form or by contacting us by phone or in person. Details available here at Contact Us.
I already compost. How can Kitchen to Compost help me?
If you are already composting, then you already know the benefits of having a compost pile or worm farm.
The organics bin will complement what you are already doing by taking those additional items that are hard to compost or that the worms don’t want to eat.
These items include:
- Meat, seafood and bones
- Citrus fruits
- Cooked foods, oils and fats
- Pet manures
- Diseased plants and weeds
- Excess lawn clippings and leaves
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