Local Councils and businesses across NSW can benefit from $2.6 million in grants available to introduce or grow food and garden waste collection services, the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) announced.
EPA Organics Manager Amanda Kane said the grants provide funding for household collection services, trials for food waste collections in unit blocks and new food waste collection services for businesses looking to improve their waste practice and transform their organic waste into a new resource, like compost.
“Councils that have received these grants previously have been able to divert thousands of tonnes of waste by introducing regular organic collections services. Every council, like Bega, Byron and Shellharbour, combined it with great education to teach people how to use the service, while councils like Sydney and Randwick are trialling food-only collections to transform it into electricity,” Ms Kane said.
“With this funding, councils and businesses can make a real difference when it comes to reducing the amount of organic waste that goes to landfill.
“Previous projects have supported new or improved green lid bins to 600,000 more homes in NSW, diverting an extra 160,000 tonnes of food and garden waste from landfill to be turned into high quality compost.
“With this funding support, residents in 42 council areas across NSW are now able to recycle their food and garden waste at the kerbside each week.
“This new round offers more councils the opportunity to expand their services, getting food and garden waste out of landfill to be turned into a valuable product that improves soil health.”
The grants are being delivered through a partnership between the EPA and the NSW Environmental Trust and funded through the Environmental Trust.
Environmental Trust Director Grants Tina Bidese said the funding supported infrastructure to deliver the new services.
“These grants fund the infrastructure needed to expand services, such as wheelie bins, kitchen caddies and for business collections, vehicles. It also supports education to make sure people use the new service correctly,” Ms Bidese said.
- Applications are open until 27 June 2019
- A webinar detailing how to apply for business collections will be held on 15 May 2019.
