What happens to the garden waste in my green waste bin?

I decided to find out.

A few weeks ago, I was part of a side discussion about garden waste and green waste bins at our one of our ACF Community Brisbane Northside Community Conversations.  Someone was curious about what happens to the contents of the green bin, so I decided to find out. 

The Council has a video which shows how the green waste is collected, mulched and composted at green waste recycling facilities.  This means the nutrients in the green waste are recycled back into the soil and the organic waste is diverted from landfill where the nutrients are lost and the breakdown process is very slow, and it creates greenhouse gases.

One of the companies undertaking the recycling of the garden organics is Phoenix Power Recyclers.  They make more than 50,000 cubic metres of compost a year.  

Home composting is an excellent solution for garden waste as it keeps your nutrients in your soil, and you won’t need to spend money buying compost or fertilisers to put those nutrients back.  But not everyone is able to do it, so green garden waste bins are a great alternative. Your garden waste will still be recycled into compost for someone else to use, instead of filling up valuable landfill space.  This is my diagram of what happens to green waste at my local Resource Recovery Centre at Nudgee.

More than 26 percent of the average Brisbane household bin is garden waste, meaning tonnes of garden waste is sent to landfill each year.  To save valuable landfill space, ensure the nutrients are recycled and remove the issues with green waste in landfill, green bins should be part of the standard waste service provided by the Brisbane City Council not an optional paid extra. As a city that aspires to be Clean, Green, Sustainable it seems like a no-brainer to do everything possible to keep garden waste out of landfill.