WHEN Emma Flemming moved to Orange seven months ago with her husband and two children, she had no idea chicken bones and cheesy pizza boxes could be placed in the green bin, but she became one of 139 trial participants to benefit from extra help.
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Mrs Flemming said she became aware of the trial for fortnightly red bin collections at one of the public displays run by consultant Envirocon.
“We came from a town that didn’t have [organics] - they had green waste, but only garden clippings,” she said.
“I was just interested that you can put a lot of things in the green waste bin that we weren’t used to doing.”
The Flemmings treated the trial as a game to see how long they could make their red bin last between collections and they reached the three-week mark.
“It was a bit of a challenge to do that,” Mrs Flemming said.
“Something my husband suggested was to buy meat from the butcher instead of the supermarket just because they put it in a plastic bag and that takes up much less space.”
The family’s red bin was audited once at the start of the trial and again at the end - the first audit revealed some items capable of being placed in other bins, but they received top marks during the follow-up.
She said recycling was more difficult because the yellow bin tended to fill quickly.
“One of the ladies suggested crushing everything - that was a novel thought, so we started doing it and that really helped,” she said.
“I think just that constant process over the 12-week period was really good for getting in a good habit.”
danielle.cetinski@fairfaxmedia.com.au
