The push to minimising food waste in landfills: what this means for New South Wales businesses

Why?

The Government is doing this because it has set the goal of halving the quantity of organics, including food waste, going to landfill and achieving net zero emissions from organics in landfill by 2030.

Who is impacted?

Businesses that must separate food waste from 1 July 2025 include:

• Supermarkets with a gross floor area of at least 1,000 m2
• Institutions such as correctional complexes, childcare facilities, educational establishments, hospitals and aged care facilities.
• Hospitality premises including hotels and motels, registered clubs, mobile catering business premises and premises with a food court.

Start dates will be staggered based on garbage bin capacity with the largest waste generators complying from 1 July 2025.

In a building complex with tenants, the requirement to arrange separation of food waste will be the responsibility of whoever is in charge of the waste collection service. Most likely this will be the building owner or manager. It will not be the responsibility of the individual tenants.

The building manager will need to ensure that there are enough bins for food waste and that organic and non-organic waste are not mixed during transportation.

Local councils will monitor and enforce business compliance. The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) will monitor and enforce State and public authority compliance.

What this means

Building managers and facility operators will need to:

• Provide bins for separated food waste
• Identify and make available storage space for separated food waste
• Train cleaners and staff to identify and separate food appropriately
• Engage a contractor, or negotiate with the existing contractor, to collect separated food waste.

For certain developments, developers, architects and consultantswill need to take food waste into account when calculating waste quantities and determining what waste streams need to be collected. Architects may need to allow more space when designing certain new commercial developments to accommodate separated food waste.

Specifications and requirements in Council waste guidelines and Development Control Plans will also be overridden by the new legislation. Council staff will have additional responsibilities and workload monitoring and enforcing the new requirement. This last point will make enforcing this new requirement very difficult for small businesses.

How SLR can help

Our Sustainable Waste Management team has prepared hundreds of waste management plans for new developments. We are currently including information on food waste quantities and separation in the advice that we are providing to clients developing properties that will be affected by this new requirement. Separation of food waste is one more factor in the complex set of requirements specified by local and state authorities for new developments. Our consultants are specialists in this area and can provide appropriate advice to assist our clients’ getting their new developments approved.

For further information, please contact Andrew.