Recycled organics - also known as compost - are a cost-effective, completely safe and effective way to keep council green spaces healthy. It's also completely circular: using food organics and garden organics (FOGO) from kerbside collections - via a commercial composting facility - to improve residents' local area.
Each year councils across Victoria collect approximately 750,000 tonnes of green waste via their municipal services including kerbside collections and transfer stations. This is processed into almost 450,000 tonnes of compost.
'Using recycled organics compost made from kerbside organic waste in municipalities is a circular economy that councils can easily participate in,' says Andrew Dougall, Sustainability Victoria's Organics Industry and Development Lead.
'Recycled organics compost also improves soil health and that makes trees and gardens more healthy and more resilient to climate change.'
Sustainability Victoria works with Victorian Councils and industry across the supply chain to ensure more recycled organic product is bought at-scale and recycled products are prioritised.
Here are 6 reasons your council should be using locally made compost.
1. Reduce fertiliser use
Using compost reduces the reliance on fertilisers because nutrients are released from compost in a controlled way to feed both the soil and plants. Compost is less expensive and a more circular product than fertilsers. Using compost also avoids many of the health and environmental risks of using fertilisers.
2. Compost makes trees more heat resilient, which helps cool the environment
Because compost helps soil hold on to water it makes plants more resilient against high temperature. And because compost contributes to producing healthier and more heat-resilient trees in a warming environment, it also plays a role in cooling the urban landscape.
3. Fewer weeds and plant diseases
Composted mulches are free of weed seeds and pathogens (unlike uncomposted mulches). This is because commercially composted products are composted at high temperatures that kill weed seeds and pathogens.
4. Compost can drastically improve soil health and plant growth
Compost produces healthier and better-growing plants. Compost delivers nutrients to soil in a controlled way by activating soil biology - that's the biological community in soil, like bacteria and fungi. A high-functioning soil can decompose organic material and cycle nutrients, control soil-borne pathogens, improve soil structure, and sustain high levels of vigorous and healthy grasses, shrubs and trees.
5. Future-proof areas with a lot of foot traffic
High-traffic areas that have compost applied stand up better to wear. The soil in these areas is often compacted, which means that roots struggle to grow and can become waterlogged (because of poor drainage). Compost will help by increasing soil organic carbon which in turn makes the soil less prone to compaction and improves drainage.
6. Reinvigorate soils in bad condition
Compost improves soil structure. All soil types (sandy, waterlogged, clay soils or soils that have been over-cultivated or exposed to chemicals like weed killers) can benefit from different types of compost. As a rule, any non-contaminated compost is better than none.
