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Lessons From Sydney

Posted on: Sunday, 18 September 2005, 18:00 CDT

Why don't we ... do as is done in Sydney, where municipal councils such as Warringah Council in Sydney's northern suburbs make a monthly collection of green recyclable wastes.

To dispose of such wastes Christchurch gardeners have three options:

* Burn them -- if they have room for a fire and for storage, as open fires are only permitted for four months of the year at the most. And if they have no environmental concerns about the smoke emitted.

* Compost them. Again, not all gardens have room for composts big or numerous enough for all the garden litter, trimmings, etc accumulated in a year.

* Cart them -- more often than not in a hired trailer -- to the recycling centre, where you have to pay to dump it and pay to buy it back in a composted form. Soaring petrol prices and global warming make this an increasingly unattractive option for many.

To rid themselves of garden waste, Sydney householders, however, can put it in 240-litre wheelie bins (which they must buy) and/or put it out tied with natural string in bundles small enough to be "readily handled by one person".

Branches and sticks must be least than 1.2m long and 75mm diameter. No more than three cubic metres (about an average trailerload) will be collected from one household in one month.

The council will collect grass clippings and garden prunings, weeds and leaves, tree loppings and small branches and flowers.

It will not accept vegetation in plastic bags, building, painted, stained or chemically treated timber, tree stumps, and other household wastes.

All collected material is shredded, composted and used in council gardens or sold. --Mary Lovell-Smith

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Source: Press, The; Christchurch, New Zealand

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