'Straight to landfill': Compostable packaging but nowhere to compost it

There is something very wholesome happening at ACT events when you are eating your food truck treats from a compostable plate, with compostable cutlery and sipping from a compostable cup.

The ACT mandates reusable, recyclable and compostable packaging at all public events, but nearly all of it ends up in landfill because there is no facility to compost it.

Debbie Clifford pours hundreds of coffees every Saturday morning at the Capital Region Farmers Market, and is demoralised by the lack of action.

"We're being sold a lie," Ms Clifford said.

"It says compostable, but it's going straight to landfill.

"What I find really frustrating is that so many people are willing to do the right thing, but the government is not able to support our community to do that."

'What's the point?'

The ACT government was the first in Australia to ban single-use plastics at public events, requiring organisers, vendors, and caterers to use reusable, recyclable, or compostable alternatives, but it has not built the infrastructure to actually recycle or compost the material.

While the original intent has been welcomed, many vendors and waste advocates say it is window dressing and has become a source of frustration rather than pride.

"You buy them because they're meant to be compostable," Ms Clifford said.

"They're more expensive than a regular cup, and that's because they're meant to be better for the environment.

"What's the point? You pay a high price and it's all going to landfill anyway."

Across Canberra's event sector, small business owners, market managers and waste worriers are wrestling with a policy that mandates the front end of a circular economy without delivering it full circle.

No organics bin, only a too-hard basket

Dan Watters has spent decades working in resource recovery running events and helping events, such as the National Folk Festival, reduce their waste line.

After eating breakfast at the Capital Region Farmers Market, Mr Watters pointed to the range of cardboard and paper products it was served on as an example of the ACT's composting issue.

"We don't have facilities in the ACT that can handle some types of material such as this," he said.

"Everything here is compostable, but I don't have anywhere to put that compostable material other than a landfill bin or a recycling bin."

Without those facilities, the mandated packaging ends up in one of two places: landfill, where organic material breaks down into methane, or in the recycling bin, where — unless it's correctly sorted — it contaminates the entire load.

"People might think they're doing the right thing, but I'm pretty sure a lot of it's going to landfill," Mr Watters said.

Market waste all goes to waste

Capital Region Farmers Market manager Sarah Power said dealing with the waste was a complicated puzzle for vendors, customers and management alike.

"Everyone here is really keen to embrace it," Ms Power said.

"[But] we're all really confused about what we do with all of our packaging, which is able to be composted, but isn't being composted."

The market has tried.

It is looking at how to manage the organic waste through a private collection and in the past has partnered with SimplyCups, a Sydney-based company that composts the BioCup, but the program is expensive and relies on shipping waste interstate, producing its own transport emissions.

"It would be fantastic if we could find a way to get that material into a compost, but we haven't found the right person in government to have those discussions," Ms Power said

Good intentions, wrong bin

Mr Watters said it was clear that getting rid of single-use petroleum-based plastics was the right first step and reflected genuine environmental intent.

"Getting rid of plastic is obviously the first place you want to start, but then why aren't we recovering organic material?"

Mr Watters said.

He pointed to what he sees as a golden, but currently untapped, opportunity to compost waste at scale in the ACT.

"You need a mix of carbon and nitrogen to successfully compost," Mr Watters said.

"We have a great opportunity here, the FOGO [Food Organics and Garden Organics] trial will be getting a lot of nitrogen material.

"You can combine the two and then you have a facility that can handle commercial quantities of carbon-rich material and stuff that needs to be commercially composted.

"It's not hard. It just takes a bit of thinking and a bit of effort."

As he left the market, Mr Watters put the compostable plates, cutlery and BioCup into the red-lidded landfill bin.

"We don't have a compost bin so this one's having to go in the too-hard basket. Sorry planet."

Green packaging not always compostable

In a recent social media post, the ACT government said compostable packaging did not belong in recycling or green waste, but instead should go in the general waste bin.

"Our recycling sorting facility doesn't process compostable items, and many need specialised commercial composting conditions to break down properly," ACT City Services wrote on Facebook.

The ACT government did not respond to direct questions about the issue, but in a previous statement said while some packaging may look fully compostable, not all of it was due to waterproof and non-stick coatings.

"Food waste is highly valuable for compost, if not contaminated with other materials," an ACT government spokesperson said.

"Unfortunately, some fibre-based packaging labelled as compostable can cause issues in composting facilities."

Mr Watters says it is simple to make the process full circle.

"It's simple — only organic material at an event. Then no-one needs to think and all of that material is composted. That's the circular economy,"

he said.

He said many vendors were already doing most of the heavy lifting, with some events asking them to serve on fully compostable material.

But the missing link is a facility to process all of it.

The proposed Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) facility in Hume was originally planned to be operational by 2023, but it is still in the planning and design phase.