Welcome to the Australian Local Food System Policy Database. This is a collection of policies from New South Wales (NSW) and Victorian local governments that relate to healthy, sustainable, and equitable food systems.
For further information about using the database and how it was created see How to use the database. You can search the database by using the fields below. Domain refers to eight broad categories under which various topics are situated. The domains and topics are based on a framework of recommendations for local government action on creating a healthy, sustainable, and equitable food system (also located on the ‘How to use the database’ page linked above).
To cite the database: Reeve B, Carrad A, Rose N, Charlton K & Aguirre-Bielschowsky I (2021) Australian Local Food System Policy Database. Available at: https://law-food-systems.sydney.edu.au/policy-database (access date).
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Hold Ctrl to select multiple terms. Using ‘any words’ functions as an “OR” search. Using ‘all words’ functions as and “AND” search.
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| Document title | Relevant text in the policy | Domain | Topic | State | Local Government name | Council type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | Engage with all commercial food premises to encourage them to arrange for private | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | ESF Goal 1 – Increase percentage of recyclables (comingle and garden organics) recovered from kerbside collections o Facilitate and evaluate opportunities, and develop recommendations for systems and infrastructure to keep food waste out of landfill. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | ESF Goal 2 – Increase diversion of waste from landfill to 60% by 2020 and to 75% by 2025 compared to FY 14/15 baseline o Review and provide recommendations and strategy to implement FOGO (food and garden organics) system within the Bayside municipality. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | FOGO The change costs associated with the introduction of the FOGO service are depicted in Table 9. Note: Negative amounts represent savings that contribute to net totals for each financial year Table 8 – FOGO Change Costs Activity Develop and implement engagement and education plan. Commence full-time fixed term Band 5 FOGO Support Officer position in April 2019. Provision of kitchen caddies to residents that request them. Reduced landfill disposal costs. Additional 12,948 bins to be collected fortnightly (not currently using the garden organics service) Increased organics processing costs under MWRRG FOGO contract ($95/T). TOTALs 105,000 2018/19 105,000 2019/20 170,000 400,000 -240,247 -559,027 262,080 313,898 906,000 | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | Food and Garden Organics (FOGO) For remaining quantities of food waste, a Council provided Food and Garden Organics (FOGO) kerbside collection2 is effective in diverting this waste from landfill. Current contracts are in place for garden organics processing that can accommodate food waste and produce high quality soil amendments that are in demand by the agricultural industry. Households are required to separate food waste from other recyclables and garbage at the source, typically by using a dedicated 7 to 8 litres caddy or compostable (corn starch) bags/liners and to transfer the food waste to the organics bin every 2 to 3 days. The provision of suitable in-kitchen food waste storage options (kitchen caddy) will be the focus of Council’s FOGO education and promotion campaign, with the option of having a Council supplied standard caddy. Following the expiry of current garden organics and garbage collection contracts, the FOGO collection service frequency can be increased to weekly and the frequency of the garbage collection can be reduced to fortnightly to reflect the changed compositions and volumes of the respective waste streams. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | In 2014, 65% of the material going to landfill (13,130 tons) from waste kerbside bins could have been recycled or composted. Approximately 40% of Bayside’s landfill waste is food, and 15% is recyclable materials. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | In August 2018, Council conducted a community engagement program using both online and face to face information gathering. This engagement was widely advertised in both online and print media. The engagement activities generated significant interest, with 1681 responses being received from members of the Bayside community. The engagement was centred around the views of the community on the introduction of a food and garden organics (FOGO) collection service as a means of diverting food waste from landfill. As depicted in Figure 8 below, a significant majority (74%) of responders indicated that they would be happy to put most or all food waste in a garden organics bin, even if it was only collected at the current fortnightly schedule. Although the size of the household size did not have a significant impact on the likelihood of adopting the use of the garden organics bin for food waste, as depicted in Figure 10, sole person households were found to be less likely to do this and larger households (of five or more people) were more likely to do so. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | Increase the frequency of soft plastics collection services at the Community Recycling Stations | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | Introduce FOGO collection in stages: Introduce food waste to existing garden organics collection service (this increases the cost per tonne of garden organics processing); Roll out compulsory garden organics collection bin service to all households to commence a FOGO service – user pays (additional 13,000 bins to be collected – an increased cost to Council); Increase diversion of food and garden organics 2.6 Create, execute and manage a comprehensive, evidence based waste education and communications plan to prepare and manage implementation of FOGO program (an increased cost); Provide kitchen caddies to residents by request (an increased cost); Following an implementation transition, reduce the frequency of service for residential general waste in 2021/22 and increase the frequency of the FOGO collection. Evaluate if the bins sizes and colours need to conform to industry | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | Key service changes involved in the strategy actions involve the introduction of household food waste recycling via the garden organics kerbside bin collection service (FOGO) and the procurement of advance waste processing facilities to divert residual waste from landfill. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | Promote the use of reusable cups as an alternative to disposable takeaway coffee cups | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | Reduce food waste disposed in waste bins from 46% to below 30% by 2020. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | Reduce food waste disposed in waste bins to below 30% by 2020 | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | The Council Plan also lists the action to develop a new Recycling and Waste Management Strategy focusing on community education and behaviour change in preparation for the introduction of food waste and the increasing costs of landfill and haulage. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | The Council Plan also specifies the action to develop a new Recycling and Waste Management Strategy focusing on community education and behaviour change in preparation for the introduction of food waste to the garden organics kerbside collection and to address the increasing costs of landfill and haulage of waste. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | The key service changes that have involve financial implications are: Implementation of a FOGO service to divert food waste from landfill; | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | The net cost of the actions listed in this Strategy over the next 10 years is $6.5 million. The timing of the implementation of the actions has been determined to ensure the municipal waste charge to residents is not increased (beyond CPI) over this period. The staging and associated cost impacts of the key service changes associated with this Strategy are based on certain assumptions that will require ongoing monitoring and management to ensure these changes are implemented successfully. Examples of these assumptions are summarised as: The staged implementation of FOGO considers the constraint of the expiry dates for the existing garbage and garden organics collection contracts and that household behaviour change on source separating food waste will be modest at first (7%) and increase gradually over the following two years supported by sustained community engagement, education and promotion by Council over this period. The costs of implementing FOGO includes the provision of caddies to only a portion of Bayside households for temporary storage of food prior to transfer to the kerbside organics bin given storage solutions need to be flexible and tailored to the varying sizes and layouts of resident’s kitchens. Again, the importance of household source separation of food waste with low levels of contamination to the success of the FOGO service needs to be a focus of Council’s ongoing community engagement activities. The procurement of advanced waste resource recovery (AWRRT) facilities to process residual waste (garbage) to further divert this material from landfill is considered to have a negligible net cost impact to current service costs in this Strategy on the basis that the AWRRT services will only be established in the marketplace by being cost competitive with current landfill disposal fees. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| Recycling and Waste Management Strategy 2018 – 2027 | Theme 2. Resource recovery and recycling Objectives: Increase diversion of food and garden organics | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | Victoria | Bayside | Metropolitan |
| REDUCE SINGLE-USE PLASTICS POLICY | City of Ryde Council demonstrates leadership to improve and protect the health of our waterways and environment by banning plastic straws and balloons, phasing out single-use plastics and educating the community and businesses to enable change. | Health and Wellbeing | Education/events on food system issues | NSW | Ryde | Metropolitan |
| REDUCE SINGLE-USE PLASTICS POLICY | City of Ryde Council demonstrates leadership to improve and protect the health of our waterways and environment by banning plastic straws and balloons, phasing out single-use plastics and educating the community and businesses to enable change. ___ | Health and Wellbeing | Education/events on food system issues | NSW | Ryde | Metropolitan |
| REDUCE SINGLE-USE PLASTICS POLICY | Providing leadership in the community and local businesses to reduce the use of single-use plastics, particularly plastic straws and single-use plastic bags within the local government area through changes to policy and practice, and developing an education plan and resources to assist | Health and Wellbeing | Education/events on food system issues | NSW | Ryde | Metropolitan |
| REDUCE SINGLE-USE PLASTICS POLICY | The development of an action plan and education program focused on Council, the community and local businesses to influence change in social practices; | Health and Wellbeing | Education/events on food system issues | NSW | Ryde | Metropolitan |
| REDUCE SINGLE-USE PLASTICS POLICY | 2. Prohibiting the use of plastic bottles (alternative water sources must be considered), | Health and Wellbeing | Access to safe drinking water | NSW | Ryde | Metropolitan |
| REDUCE SINGLE-USE PLASTICS POLICY | City of Ryde Council demonstrates leadership to improve and protect the health of our waterways and environment by banning plastic straws and balloons, phasing out single-use plastics and educating the community and businesses to enable change. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | NSW | Ryde | Metropolitan |
| REDUCE SINGLE-USE PLASTICS POLICY | Implementation The intent of the policy will be delivered through the following mechanisms: The development of an action plan and education program focused on Council, the community and local businesses to influence change in social practices; The development of waste-wise event guidelines and a preferred supplier list for events; Promoting alternatives to single-use plastics to assist in influencing the business and retail community to provide products and services that do not rely on single use plastics; Implementing responsible procurement practise and influencing supply chains; Ensuring outcomes align with Council policies, such as the Sustainable Procurement Policy, and that guidelines include requirements leading towards the elimination of single-use plastic in Ryde LGA. | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | NSW | Ryde | Metropolitan |
| REDUCE SINGLE-USE PLASTICS POLICY | The purpose of this policy is to demonstrate leadership by reducing the usage of single-use plastic in the local government area. This will be achieved by: 1. Prohibiting the use of plastic drinking straws and balloons in all Council Operations and Council-sponsored Events 2. Prohibiting the use of plastic bottles (alternative water sources must be considered), ready-to-eat plastic serving containers and utensils, and singleuse plastic bags at Council Events 3. Phasing out the use of plastic bottles, single-use plastic serving containers and utensils, and single-use plastic bags, at all Council operations and Council sponsored events with a final ban date of 29 February 2020. 4. Minimising the environment impact of any products, supplies and promotional materials used in all Council Operations and Council-sponsored Events 5. Providing leadership in the community and local businesses to reduce the use of single-use plastics, particularly plastic straws and single-use plastic bags within the local government area through changes to policy and practice, and developing an education plan and resources to assist | Food Waste | Food losses and food waste | NSW | Ryde | Metropolitan |
| Refugee Welcome Zone Action Plan | Seasonal Labour – fruit picking/vineyards | Economic Development | Food related job creation | Victoria | Mount Alexander | Regional |
| Refugee Welcome Zone Action Plan | Farm land available for refugee enterprises | Economic Development | Local food producers | Victoria | Mount Alexander | Regional |
| Refugee Welcome Zone Action Plan | Farm land available for refugee enterprises | Sustainability and Environment | Sustainable local food production | Victoria | Mount Alexander | Regional |
| Refugee Welcome Zone Action Plan | Community Vegie Gardens on spare land | Sustainability and Environment | Food production on LG land | Victoria | Mount Alexander | Regional |