Leichhardt residents’ recycling skills acknowledged

The good recycling skills of residents in Leichhardt have been identified in a recent LGA Association audit of recycling bins. The audit showed that 79% of all waste in their recycling bins is untainted, recoverable and is made into recycled products.

Leichhardt Council is encouraging everyone to take up composting to improve their recycling rate even more.

Only 4.8% of material collected from their recycling bins is contaminated, compared to 11% across the region.

The garden organics bins showed a contamination rate of 0.3%, which is again far better than the regional average of 3.1%.

Leichhardt residents also have an extremely low amount of hazardous and e-waste finding their way into their bins - less than 1%.

And in a very good result, Leichhardt was the only council in the region where no plastic bags were found in any of the recycling bins.

Leichhardt participated in a waste and recycling household audit in May 2011 together with the 13 other councils of Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils.

Recycling bins from 220 households across the LGA were sampled, including single houses and apartments from unit blocks.

All that dedicated recycling, together with careful purchasing choices, is reflected in the lower amount of general garbage Leichhardt households produce each week of 8.2 kg, which is almost 3 kg less than the NSW average of 11 kg/household and 1.5 kg less than the regional average of 9.7 kg/household.

In 2010/2011, council collected 3282 tonnes of paper/cardboard, which is equivalent to a saving of 8205 tonnes of greenhouse gases from the Leichhardt community.

With a total diversion rate (the amount of the community’s total waste going to recycling facilities) of 45%, there is still some way to go to meet the state government’s 2014 target of 66%.

The largest proportion of the waste stream is food waste, at 39%, which is still lower than 2008 where food made up 43% of the garbage bin.

One of the most important things Leichhardt residents could do to help meet the state government’s target is to begin composting at home, which would take a lot of food waste out of the garbage. And Leichhardt residents who live in unit blocks that share garbage bins can have their food waste collected and recycled.

The council can advise residents on ways to compost that will suit their household, and they can start by taking a look at the short film Leichhardt is making, compost - it’s easy!, produced by council and now available on council’s website. Council also sells compost bins, wormfarms and Bokashi buckets.