Returning valuable organics to soil

Generating 3cm of top soil takes 1,000 years and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world's top soil could be gone within 60 years, a senior UN official said. Recycling food waste into soil conditioning compost full of nutrients and valuable organic matter is a sustainable solution to this problem. Returning organic waste back to the soil via compost also helps farmers move away from chemical fertilisers and mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon in soil.

Australian Organics Recycling Association (AORA) works to ensure surplus organic material can be sustainably and cost-effectively recycled and to promote the beneficial use of compost, soil conditioners and mulches in primary industries.

The Australian organics recycling industry processed 7.5 million tonnes of organic material in 2018-19, saving 3.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gas - equivalent to planting 5.7 million trees.

In NSW alone, 41% of landfill waste from household red lidded bins has the potential to be recycled as food and garden (FOGO) waste each week, according to a recent audit commissioned by NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.

A new report released by AORA models what the economic and environmental contribution would be if current organics recycling rates were increased nationally to 70, 80, 90 and 95%. At 70%, organics recycling businesses would generate an extra $771 million in sales and save an additional 1.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

Ramping it up to 95% would create $1.7 billion in additional revenue and provide $1.6 billion in supply chain opportunity. It would also save an extra 3.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions - the equivalent of taking 741,524 cars off the road.

South Australia leads organics recycling

South Australia is far ahead of the other Australian states when it comes to resource recovery with more than 40 councils offering residents kerbside green bins for recycling food organics and garden organics (FOGO). Victoria’s beginning to follow SA’s lead, with 10 councils offering FOGO bins and 10 more rolling out in 2020. New South Wales will also follow, announcing a plan to achieve net zero emissions from organic waste in landfill by 2030. 

The majority of SA’s organic waste goes to commercial composting facilities Peats Soil & Garden Supplies and Jeffries. Each facility recycles around 150,000 tonnes of food organics a year from household green bins as well as hotels, supermarkets, schools, offices and manufacturers. Open windrow composting takes 12 to 15 weeks to create quality compost, soil and mulch products for local vineyards, vegetable growers, orchards, nut growers, turf management specialists, trade and retail outlets.

AORA Chair Peter Wadewitz has been commercially processing compost for over 40 years as Managing Director of Peats Soils and BiobiN? Technologies. With four compost and renewable energy sites in South Australia, Peter is passionate about the environmental impacts of soil improvement, biofuel and regeneration and involves his grandson Mack.

Visitors from the USA to Peats’ composting facility at Brinkley in Adelaide said they’ve seen Peats’ technologies used at various sites but never all at the same site before. Peter’s new de-packaging machine can remove organics from all types of aluminium, glass and plastic containers containing food and beverages not fit for consumption that would otherwise go to landfill. The machine pumps the organic waste into an anaerobic digester which generates renewable energy and the rest is added to compost. 

Food waste cost Australia $10.1 billion in 2019 and $8.9 billion in 2018, research shows. Primary production and manufacturing aren’t the biggest food waste offenders. That title goes to consumers who generate 34 percent of the nation’s food waste… 92 percent of that goes straight to landfill. Reducing food waste is paramount, then there are renewable energy opportunities for a sustainable biofuel future.

Smart soil solutions for sustainable agriculture

Earlier this year, Qatar Airlines was producing around 8 tonnes of food scraps in two days from preparing approximately 190,000 meals a day. Mostly clean fruit and vegetable peelings, the waste was captured in BioBags and put into on site BiobiNs at the airport to start the composting process. Then it was transported to Peats’ nearby composting facility where it’s turned into valuable soil nutrients needed to grow plants in Qatar’s arid soil.

This year, Peats Soil has also been innovating with Fight Food Waste CRC to create a new smart compost specially formulated to grow healthier, longer-lasting fruit, vegetables and crops. University of Queensland researchers identified microbes that kill off diseases in vegetable growing. These targeted microbes were used to create a green organics compost and potentially reduce Australia’s 7.3 million tonnes of annual food waste.

The trial has led to the development of a prototype, high-value compost product for horticulture and turf farmers that will help produce healthier food and balance essential nutrients and minerals in the soil.

“We believe it will lead to a longer shelf life and also with the talk around nutrient density we want to make sure we’re getting the right nutrients out of plants,” Peter said. “We’ve been doing some trials and seeing the difference in colour and health (in vegetables).”

In the most recent National Waste Report, AORA says compost use, soil health and soil carbon sequestration programs will become the norm in future farming: “There is an opportunity to sequester more carbon than we emit as a nation and to improve the water efficiency and productivity of our soils.”

Solutions great and small - we need them all

AORA has identified the most significant challenges for the organics recycling industry are the significant costs of compliance to environmental regulation for processing facilities, financial guarantees and the continued development of markets for the recycled products.

These factors deter investment by small and medium enterprise in the sector, leaving only large operators as viable businesses.

This needs to be sorted out by Governments. 

Thankfully, compost collection services exist around the country to service all sizes of businesses and communities without access to council or commercial organics recycling bins.

In Newcastle, Feedback Organic Recovery's David Sivyer started a program called FoodCycle to collect household food waste and manually convert it into compost at his urban farm in Cardiff Heights. Households, apartment blocks and organisations host FoodCycle bins so community members can join those hubs to sustainably manage their food waste in the Newcastle area, as shown on this website map.

There’s about 30 bins set up and Feedback’s making FoodCycle available for as many households as possible, as fast as possible! ‘Tentative Host Bins’ are set up when a minimum of 3 budding households are ready to join in the same location. Each FoodCycle location has from 4 to 15 households participating (depending on each situation and how much food waste the households are producing) to change food waste into a food system.

This program alone has recycled 450,000 litres of food waste since 2013 via manual composting to grow locally and sustainably produced food.

For more inspiring stories of grassroots Aussies composting in their local communities, check out this blog I wrote for BioBag.

No change is too small and we need everybody on board if we're going to divert valuable organic resources away from landfills to replenish Australian soil.

As 2040: The Regeneration's film producer Damon Gameau said: “We can’t have human health without plant health - and we can’t have plant health without soil health”.

What good is it if valuable organics end up in landfills or sewage where they can't be recovered or returned to agricultural soil?

We need to return carbon and valuable nutrients to the soil so we can grow more nutrient dense food and protect against extreme weather events like drought and floods. When it rains, soil with less carbon and organic matter absorbs almost no water and allows it to run off, taking the chemicals with it into nearby rivers and waterway. We need to hold that water and absorb it into the land.

As Peter Wadewitz explains, sustainable agriculture needs 2 to 4 percent carbon in soil, but there’s only 0.5 to 1 percent carbon in some Australian farming areas: “One tonne of pure carbon can store between 4 and 8 tonnes of water in soil,” Peter said. “The composting process enables carbon to remain in soil for longer. The benefits of the compost we are producing now will last in soil for up to 100 years.”

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