Stop food waste with home composting

26 April 2023

In recognition of International Stop Food Waste Day the City of Cape Town has begun a new rollout of home composting containers to encourage more families to take part in this activity.

As of yesterday, 25 April 2023, approximately 200 more families in and around Kuils River will now have the tools and information they need to start producing compost from their food waste. This is the first of five rollouts of composting containers scheduled before the end of the financial year. In total, 1 000 containers will be distributed before 1 July 2023.

Promoting home composting is a useful tactic the City is using to reduce emissions from landfills. When organic waste breaks down in landfills, it produces landfill gas. This gas, made up primarily of methane, is understood to have a global warming potential 25 times higher than carbon dioxide. However, the production of landfill gas is avoided by composting the waste. It is estimated that a total of 1 650 tonnes of organic waste was composted from the programme's inception until the end June 2021. The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission savings is estimated at 2 092t CO2e (tons carbon dioxide equivalent) for the same period.

The distribution of the next 200 containers will take place at the next UWM Basket of Waste Services Roadshow event, currently planned for 9 May 2023 at the Dulcie September Civic Centre in Athlone. Distribution of containers at these information roadshow events will continue for the foreseeable future, on a first come-first served basis. The roadshows will be supported by targeted invitations via social media to the hosting community in the days before the event.

Residents who would like to apply for a container should please bring along their ID and municipal account. Please note that only single residential households may apply, and only one container will be issued per household. Education on how to set up the container and make compost will be done at the collection site.

'Landfill gas is seldom mentioned in other general campaigns around global warming, but is a very significant contributor to global warming. As a society, we need to be more conscious of the impacts of our organic waste, and for this reason, it is important that we support this day of awareness. The City has chosen to support the cause by promoting home composting, as almost anyone with a small garden can do it.

'Since the start of the programme in 2016, we have issued more than 22 000 free home composting containers to residents throughout the city to try and build a composting culture. Even if you miss out on a City-issued container this time, there are various home composting systems available on the market at an affordable rate. If you live in a sectional-title scheme or multi-dwelling property, home composting (and recycling) may even allow you to reduce the number of bins at your property, saving you money in the process,' said Mayoral Committee Member for Urban Waste Management, Alderman Grant Twigg.