How WasteMaster is Helping to Halve Food Waste in Landfill in Australia by 2030

15 Jul

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We all know carbon dioxide is bad for the environment, and most of us do our bit to reduce our carbon footprint as best we can. We cycle, recycle, shop fairtrade and have a mammoth collection of reusable bags. But carbon dioxide isn’t the only culprit when it comes to greenhouse gases.

The methane gas emissions generated by rotting food waste in landfill does a whopping 25 times more damage to the environment than carbon dioxide. And according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, one third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted every year, causing a staggering 14% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Recycling organic waste saves the environment from being polluted by 3.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – the equivalent of planting 5.7 million trees or taking 876,663 cars off the road. Huge. Which is why one of the major targets of the 2019 National Waste Policy Action Plan is to halve the amount of organic waste sent to landfill for disposal by 2030.

So how is WasteMaster helping?

According to the 2020 Australian National Waste Report, in 2018/19 about 85% of non-hazardous food organics was deposited in landfill. That’s a massive amount of perfectly good waste, well… going to waste.

While households are getting better at managing their food waste, big business still has a way to go. Which is where WasteMaster comes in. An Australian technology, the compact WasteMaster system is easily installed onsite, and within just 24 hours converts food waste into a compressed, pathogen-free, nutrient-rich residue that has virtually no odour. The residue, which doesn’t attract insects like typical food waste, is collected weekly by the WasteMaster team and converted into renewable electricity using an anaerobic digester system, or into high quality compost.

Only low power and heat are required to power WasteMaster, and with no gas, water or enzymes used in the process, WasteMaster’s value is much, much greater than its small footprint. That’s why WasteMaster has won multiple awards, and was also a finalist in the 2020 Banksia Awards, the 2020 Victorian Premiers Sustainability Awards and the 2020 Global Good Awards.

WasteMaster gives businesses a way to save money on waste disposal while reducing their carbon footprint re-purposing food waste into a reusable resource. Gone are the days of smelly skip bins full of food waste. And thank goodness for that.