Have you
ever wondered what happens after the truck comes and empties your Green Bin
from the kerb? Well the Green Waste Education Team of JJ Richards runs monthly
tours of the Corkhill Brothers green waste processing facility, and can answer
all of your questions.
I recently
went on one of these tours which started at the Weston Creek Community Centre, just
next to Cooleman Court. About a dozen of us met with Katherine and Jules from
the Green Waste Education Team where for
around 15-20 minutes they told us all about the scheme, what you can and cannot
recycle, and what happens at the processing facility. We asked questions
ourselves, and shared in our experiences using our Green Bins. After that we hopped
on a small bus which drove us to the processing facility in Symonston and, while
staying on the bus, we drove around and stopped at various points to see the
facility in action.
So who are
the players in this recycling initiative? Well firstly the ACT Government sets
the recycling policy for the ACT and oversees the implementation of this scheme. JJ Richards are contracted to provide the Green Bins, empty
the bins on a fortnightly basis from householders, and transport it to the
processing facility. Corkhill Bros is partnered to provide this facility,
process the green waste material into something usable, and make the end
product available for sale.
Let’s
examine the process by starting with the Green Bins:
The process
all starts with you, the householder, signing up and obtaining a Green Bin. The
cost of each bin is a one-off $50 fee, but the bins are free to if you hold an
ACTION Gold Card, a Department of Veterans’ Affairs Gold Card, Centrelink
Pensioner Gold Card, MyWay Seniors Card, or a Department of Veterans’ Affairs
Pension Card.
The Green Bin
rollout started as a pilot program back in 2017 and was rolled out initially to
residents in Kambah and Weston Creek. Proving
popular it was then extended to Tuggeranong in January 2018, and a few months later
to Belconnen residents in Sept 2018. From 1 April 2019 the scheme rolls out to
the remaining Canberra districts of inner north and south, Woden, Molonglo Valley and areas of Gungahlin. Take
up so far is around the 45% mark which is pretty good. Yes, this has had an
impact on local trash pack style businesses that too offer regular collection
services, but green waste collection was always on the cards as a government
service. As too in the future, is kerbside food waste collection, which is
already being collected in many jurisdictions across Australia.
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Photo credit: ACT Government |
The aim of the
program is to divert green waste from entering landfill by providing a regular
pick up service that households can easily take part in. It is estimated that
prior to the program starting, 5000 tonnes of green waste made its way into landfill
site every year.
Now what can
you put in your bin? Well you can put in the following items:
- Grass
clippings, and it doesn’t matter if they are a little wet
- Branches and
twigs, as long as they are under 45cm long, and less than 10cm in diameter. - Anything larger cannot be broken down by the machinery.
- Leaves of
all sorts including palm fronds and ivy
- Garden prunings
- Flowers,
either from the garden, or bouquets bought from a florist or supermarket, just
be sure to remove any rubber bands, and
- Weeds. Yes! as the heat of the broken down material will kill off any weed seeds and spores
You cannot
put in the following:
- No plastics
of any kind, especially plastic bags
- No soil
- No rocks or
boulders
- No bricks
- No concrete
- No building
materials
- No sawdust
- No treated
or timber wood due to the chemicals used in their manufacture
- No food
scraps or bones, and
- No animal
waste of any sort.
Keep your
bin under 50kg in weight, or it could damage the equipment on the truck. A good
way to test if its too heavy is if you can’t wheel it to the kerb... its probably
too heavy. The bins are regularly inspected by JJ Richards staff before they
are picked up from the kerb, and if they find contamination in your bin you
could receive either a simple notice if its not too bad, or a big red cross and your bin will
not be collected if they find it majorly contaminated.
Bin
collection:
Bins are
collected from 7am onwards on the collection day, so don’t think you can
dawdle on the morning. The collection schedule has just changed from 1 April 2019,
so it will now be collected on the same weekday as your recycling pick up but
just on the alternate week. So one week you will put out your garbage bin +
recycling bin, and the next week it will be garbage bin + Green Bin. This
schedule change will make it more efficient for the trucks, and easier for
householders to remember when is collection day. JJ Richards
has nine trucks in total that service all of Canberra, and they are dedicated for
Green Waste pick up only, so they are not the same trucks that pick up your
garbage and the recycling.
The
facility:
The facility
is run by Corkhill Brothers and is located at the Mugga Lane tip which is the
same place the public use to drop off (for free) their own green waste. While
we were there, several cars with trailers stopped and offloaded their garden
waste and grass clippings.
The JJ
Richards trucks that have collected your kerbside Green Bin green waste drop
off their loads next to where the public drop off their green waste. As they
unload the trucks contents onto the ground, workers scan the pile and remove
any contaminants. While we were there we saw a couple of plastic bags being
removed from one truck load. On the whole, the contamination level of green
waste from ACT households is extremely low, only 0.05%, which is great. Just
remember, to never bag up your green waste in plastic bags, and to remove any
bird netting, plastic ties and labels, and any other foreign material from your
green waste.
After the
green waste is checked for contaminants, it is then scooped up and moved to the
Shredding Machine. This machine costs roughly about $1 million, and is built in
the USA. It grinds down the material into small pieces. This shredded matter is
then moved to another area of the site where it is laid down on the ground in
long wide rows. These are called “wind rows”, and are at the mercy of the sun
and the rain. The sun allows the rows to heat up which is good for killing off
weed seeds and nasty spores, and the rain gives the material much needed
moisture so nutrients can thrive. As the material in the piles breaks down,
they are regularly checked using a long probe which measures the ratio of
carbon, nitrogen and nutrients. They even send samples offsite to be checked in
a lab. Too much of any element is not good, so they can mix in other materials
to keep the balance just right. Every month each of the rows is “turned” using
a large machine that moves slowly over each row and tosses the material around.
This ensures that the piles are evenly mixed and don’t get too hot or too wet.
The rows are managed like this for 4 months during summer and 6 months during
winter, after which the material is then ready to use.
Back to
nature:
When the
material is ready to use, it is further sorted into two different sizes; coarse
forest litter, and fine forest litter. The coarse litter is sold as a form of
garden mulch, whereas the fine litter is used as an additive for a variety of soils
available from Corkhills such as Super Soil and Vegi Mix. Both the coarse and
the fine forest litter are available for purchase by the public, and are sold
at discounted rates, ie wholesale prices. This means that the public can
purchase this material for the same price as paid by a commercial landscaper.
The material is also used by Canberra’s city services at events such as
Floriade. As the contamination levels in this forest litter is very low, and weed
spores and seeds are killed off due to the heat levels raised in its processing,
it is a very clean material to use around the garden.
Want to know
more about the scheme? Use these handy links for more information.
JJ Richards
- https://www.actgreenwaste.jjrichards.com.au/
Corkhill
Brothers - https://www.corkhillbros.com.au/garden-organics-recycling-canberra/