Prepare for your food scraps recycling collection

What you need to do

1. Order your caddy online

   Limit of 1 caddy per household. Alternatively, you can use any container with a lid, for example an empty ice-cream or plastic container.

   Order your caddy

2. Use certified compostable bags

   Only use certified compostable bags in your kitchen caddy or food scraps recycling bin. Compostable bags are made of plant material and are suitable for the special microbial treatment process we will use to recycle your food scraps.

   Plastic, degradable and biodegradable bags must not be placed into your food scraps bin. Degradable and biodegradable bags can contain plastic and heavy metals and that are not suitable for composting or microbial treatment.

   We’ve supplied all households that have registered to participate in the trial with an initial supply of 200 compostable caddy liner bags. When using the food scraps service regularly, these bags should last the average household approximately 12 months.

3. Collect food scraps in your kitchen caddy or other container

   • Line your caddy or container with a compostable bag or newspaper. Or if you prefer, use it unlined.
   • Place all cooked and raw food scraps inside.

4. Empty your caddy just before it’s full

   • Seal food scraps by tying the liner bag, or folding the newspaper.
   • Empty at least every 2 to 3 days or more often in warm weather.

5. Deposit contents into your maroon lid food scraps bin

   • Place your bagged, wrapped or loose scraps in your maroon lid bin.
   • Be sure to close the bin lid.
   • In apartment buildings, your maroon lid bin will be in or near the main bin storage area.

6. Put your maroon lid bin out for collection

   • Put your bin out for every collection the night before, even if it’s not full. We’ll collect your maroon lid bin once a week if you live in a house and twice a week if you live in an apartment building.
   • To find your collection day, look up your property type and suburb in the table below. Phase 2 will see the trial expanded to more suburbs and this table will be updated before the service starts.
   • Bring in your bin after every collection and rinse out.
   • If you live in an apartment and someone normally puts your bins out for collection, they will also put out your maroon lid bins.

   Note: Prior to the start of phase 2, this table will be updated to include collection days for all new suburbs involved in the trial expansion.

   Property type	Suburb	Collection days
   Apartment building	All suburbs	Mondays and Thursdays
   House	Glebe, Forest Lodge, Camperdown	Tuesdays
   House	Erskineville, Newtown	Wednesdays

After you finish

Once collected, we will transport your food scraps to EarthPower, Australia’s first food waste-to-energy processing facility located in the Sydney suburb of Camellia.

The EarthPower facility uses anaerobic digestion technology to convert food scraps to green electricity and a nutrient-rich fertiliser.

As an accredited GreenPower supplier, EarthPower sells the green electricity produced from food waste processing to the grid for distribution to domestic, commercial and industrial clients. At full capacity, EarthPower can power up to 3,600 homes.

The fertiliser is produced from a nutrient rich sludge which is a by-product of the anaerobic digestion process. The sludge is dried and granulated into fertiliser prills that are sold into the agriculture and horticultural markets.

This project was supported by the Environmental Trust as part of the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment Waste Less, Recycle More initiative funded from the waste levy.