From little things big things grow

To empower our people with a way to reduce their impact on the environment, our Hobart team members are experimenting with putting their fruit and veggie scraps into caddies so that our keen gardeners can take them home for composting.  

The trial is a small way to take collective action against climate change by encouraging our people to ask themselves the question ‘should this go to landfill or is there a better use?’. It is the brainchild of Catherine, who saw an opportunity to harness the collective power of our people.  

“For a while now, I’d been bothered by how much food waste/scraps are thrown out, destined for landfill. I am a keen gardener so rather than seeing them as rubbish, I see the food scraps as valuable resources which weren’t being used as they could be.  Some examples of their use - adding to the compost pile, feeding to the chooks or worm farm,” Catherine said.  

“‘Closing the loop’ is a concept where your food waste is composted and is used to feed the soil, to grow future crops, which produce more food waste to compost (and so the cycle continues) and is far more environmentally friendly than throwing it in the rubbish bin.” 

Stacey is one of our Hobart team members who jumped at the chance to get involved.  

“I was keen to be involved to help show support for Aurora Energy. Doing compost and recycling properly is one small way we can have a big impact on the earth. There is only so much land the world has available to ‘fill’,” Stacey said.  

“I have grown up with compost bins; my most hated chore growing up was taking the compost out. However now as an adult I love the feeling of putting food scraps back into our garden, and not into landfill.” 

While the trial is in the early stages and our people are still learning where to put their scraps, it is off to a promising start. 

“It’s had an encouraging start, with the quantity gradually increasing. Within a couple of hours of setting up the compost caddies on each office floor, each one had already been used, which was very encouraging,” Catherine said. 

FOGO bins are also being explored so all food scraps and lunch leftovers can be diverted from landfill.   

“Many people now have FOGO (green waste) bins at home, so I’m sure many staff are already familiar with separating their waste between rubbish, recycling and FOGO.  While our office composting bins don’t take everything that FOGO bins can, we can collect enough to make a difference! The quantity varies daily which is to be expected, but I’ve received some really positive feedback from other staff who are extremely supportive of this trial.” 

To keep momentum up and demonstrate the real-world impact, the scraps are weighed and tallied up.  

“We are weighing the scraps each day to keep track of how much we are diverting from landfill and look forward to seeing what these figures tell us at the end of the 3-month trial.” 

So far over 10kgs have already been collected! 

“I’m seeking a few more staff members to take a turn to take scraps home to compost, but those on the roster are very enthusiastic and no scraps will go to waste! My goal is that the trial is considered a success and becomes a permanent feature - one which we can extend to Aurora Energy’s Launceston office.   

“I would love to see other businesses introducing similar practices, as collectively we can make a big difference.”