Sustainability Victoria Food Waste Study Published

Sustainability Victoria contracted EC Sustainable to undertake an Australian pioneering study to benchmark the potential for food waste avoidance. Bin audits were conducted of 1,600 Victorian households to obtain data indicators on the avoidable and potentially avoidable food disposed.

The audit found that nearly two thirds of the food thrown out by Victorian households in a week could have been consumed. This avoidable food waste makes up about 2.2 kg of the average household garbage bin, which is nearly a quarter of the bin by weight.

In addition the study benchmarked unrecovered recyclables and household chemicals disposed.

The recyclables audit found that the weight of material in the average weekly Victorian household garbage bin that could have been recycled was just over 1 kg – a tenth of the bin by weight. Most of the material was paper and cardboard, plastics and glass.

The chemicals audit found that chemicals that can be collected in Sustainability Victoria’s household chemicals collection program made up about 0.06% of total household  garbage bin by weight. The five main items were household (handheld) alkaline batteries, car batteries, paint, pharmaceuticals and aerosol cans.

The full report is available on the SV website via this link:

http://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/publications-and-research/research/bin-audits