Food waste collections would be rolled out to every Canberra household faster under an ACT Greens proposal that would scrap a large-scale compostor in favour of a series of smaller solutions.
A decentralised composting network would handle Canberra's food waste and cut the need for a multi-million dollar industrial composting facility, which has been promised by the ACT government, Jo Clay, the Greens' member for Ginninderra, said.
"They were meant to build it and roll it out by this year. They haven't done that ... I think at this point we just need to get on with the things that we know will work. It will be cheaper for the people of Canberra. It will give us real climate action sooner," Ms Clay said.
Ms Clay said the government had promised to expand food waste services to all Canberra households by 2023, but the program had been delayed until at least 2026.
Food and organic waste, known as FOGO, has been collected from 5300 households in a series of trial suburbs in Belconnen under a program that began in late 2021.
A feasibility study previously recommended an in-vessel composting facility be built, capable of processing 50,000 tonnes of organic material per year. The facility will be designed to process 70,000 tonnes a year to meet future demand.
But Ms Clay said surrounding NSW council areas were already recovering food waste using different techniques, with more smaller-scale sites, in schemes that could be adopted in the ACT.
"We can actually save the expense of building that big facility, that Labor is clearly just not gonna get around to the building and we can actually recycle our waste right now," she said.
A recent infrastructure plan update released by the government said the food and organics waste processing facility at Hume would cost between $100 million and $250 million and was "anticipated to be operational in 2026".
Ms Clay on Thursday announced the Greens' circular economy policy, which included recycling all supermarket packaging waste in Canberra by 2028 and all food waste by 2026. Fast fashion recycling would be up and running by 2028.
"It's part of taking us closer to a circular economy and a circular economy is one where we are not creating any waste. Everything that we create, we are reusing, recycling and it gets put back into the economy somewhere else," Ms Clay said.
"And it is the only way that we can look after our people and our planet."
The Greens said its policy would ensure all publicly owned solar panels and large batteries would be recycled and a reuse and repair strategy would be created.
