Skip to main content
Food waste

Find out more about how to reduce your food waste

You can reduce your waste by up to half simply by composting or worm farming food scraps and garden cuttings. It's easy, fun and a great way of making free natural fertiliser for your plants.
 
Composting suits households with a backyard and a sunny spot, and will require turning every week to keep aerated. The compost can be used back on your garden, especially around vegetable crops.
 
A worm farm suits households with small balconies or courtyards as they use a small space. They’re also very popular with children and can be an interesting ‘pet’ to observe. The primary product of a worm farm is the ‘worm juice’ that can be diluted with water and used on pot plants or gifted to a friend.
 
Compost bins and worm farms are available from most nurseries or garden supply stores, or from a range of online retailers.
Setting them up is easy too. Watch below.

To learn more about composting and worm farming, check out our Garden to Kitchen to Compost series where Toni Salter, The Veggie Lady will show you how to get started.

Composting Worm farming
Nobody wants to throw away $3,000 worth of food, but in NSW, that’s exactly what many households do every year. You could save that much, and more, just by shopping, cooking and storing food smarter.
 
To help you waste less food and money, and reduce your impact on the environment, we have partnered with the NSW Government’s ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ program.

Visit their website for tips on buying, cooking and storing food to reduce waste. You’ll find tips for planning meals, a handy serving size calculator, to help cook just the right amount, and exciting recipes to use up your leftovers. ​

 

Margaret Mossakowska from Moss House

Margaret Mossakowska is a Sustainability Educator and Moss House is her brainchild. Margaret's passion is to teach homesteading skills she learnt during her childhood in rural Poland. After moving to Australia, Margaret continued to use her knowledge to provide a healthy, natural lifestyle for her family and to keep her grounded. Her bountiful workshops are designed to empower people to live healthier and more environmentally friendly lifestyles and provide audiences with skills necessary to promote household sustainability, including growing and preserving food.

Colourful pickles Preserved lemons citrus marmalade Preserving methods

Unfortunately, due to other commitments, the founders of ShareWaste have recently closed and ShareWaste.com is no longer available to hosts or donors.

What should I do if I was already using ShareWaste?

The website is no longer running, but you can still compost! Donors can reach out to their current host to confirm whether they are still willing to accept food scraps. If you are a host who no longer wishes to accept donations, please inform your current donors. This might be as simple as posting a note on your compost bin.

One of the main goals of ShareWaste was to connect people and create a community of composters. You can continue to build this community, either informally or by creating local groups on social media.

What if I am not already part of a network?

Many local community gardens have communal composting sites. To find the contact details of community gardens in our area, visit Community Gardens in City of Canterbury-Bankstown.

Information on how to set up a home compost bin or worm farm can also be at the top of this page.

Garden to kitchen to compost

You can reduce food scraps from your home going into your red bin and grow healthy, nutritious food in your own garden at the same time.  Our free webinar series will provide you with the essential knowledge and skills to help you start a worm farm or get composting to make a positive environmental impact in your neighbourhood and divert food waste away from landfill.

Toni Salter is The Veggie Lady. As a qualified horticulturist, Toni has been teaching sustainable gardening skills since 2003, helping people just like you to grow healthy food and learn essential skills like composting to help build organic gardens. Her educational workshops offer advice for every garden – from inner city balconies to those living on acres and everything in-between.

Upcoming Workshops

Get updates on new webinar dates by signing up to Council’s ‘Clean and Green’ newsletter at: cb.city/cleanandgreen.

You can also check out the information below based on Frequently Asked Questions from previous webinars on gardening, composting and worm farming.

"Happy Houseplants: DYI Terrarium Factsheet" - Wednesday 19 January 2022 "Composting made easy FAQ's" - Tuesday 17 November 2020 "Worm farming made easy FAQ's" - Sunday 08 November 2020 "Build resilience through gardening FAQ's" - Sunday 11 October 2020 "Composting made easy FAQ's" - Sunday 25 October 2020 "Worm Farming at home made easy" webinar FAQs - Tuesday 22 September 2020 "Composting at home made easy" Webinar FAQ "Your Autumn Veggie ​Patch" Webinar FAQ "Recycling in Your Garden" Webinar FAQ "Worm farming​ at Home made easy" Webinar FAQ "A Patch from Scratch" Webinar FAQ "Growing your garden" Webinar FAQ "Compact gardens: Growing in pots" Webinar FAQ "Your edible garden problems solved" Webinar FAQ