The Back to Earth Initiative

From July 1 2015, Benalla Rural City’s urban residents now receive an organics waste service. The new green lidded organics bin is being collected weekly and the general rubbish bin will now be collected fortnightly.

Once collected, the organic material will be transported to Western Composting Technology’s state of the art organics processing facility in Shepparton, where it is processed into compost, suitable for use on broad acre farms right down to backyard vegie patches.

The Back to Earth Initiative has teamed up with Cool Australia, a not for profit organisation that provides curriculum-linked resources for teachers and students in order to produce a series of lesson plans for grades 5-8.

Following these lesson plans is an ideal way for your students to tune in to what happens to green waste once it is collected in a kerbside bin.  Learning goals enable students to  explore the relationship between waste and landfill as well as build their thinking and questioning skills.

These lessons can be used with all the learning areas of the Australian Curriculum that relate to energy and climate change.

You can access the lesson plans and associated resources here.

Greater Shepparton City Council has been collecting green waste for more than eight years. 

Moira’s organic food and garden service has now commenced.

Material is collected by local collection contractor DSK Waste and transported to Western Composting. Western Composting is a state-of-the-art, technology-leading organics processing facility located in neighbouring shire, Greater Shepparton City Council. 

Residents within the Strathbogie Shire now receive a full organics collection service (which includes both garden and food waste) in addition to their rubbish and recycling collections. The new green lidded organics bin is collected weekly and the general rubbish bin and recycling bins are collected fortnightly.

Once collected, the organic material will be transported to Western Composting Technology’s state of the art organics processing facility in Shepparton, where it is processed into compost, suitable for use on broad acre farms right down to backyard vegie patches.

To find out more about using your new service, watch Dr Karl explain it on here on YouTube.