Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the upper Blue Mountains, locals are showing us the role business can have in reducing food waste. They're not waiting for governments to solve their problem. Leura Garage is one of those local businesses—a fabulous restaurant with a focus on sustainability. I was honoured to speak at their latest 'mingle', where they introduced the newest member of their team. Her name is Chloe, and she's a huge leap forward in Leura Garage's bid to close the loop on waste by cutting out pretty much all of their landfill food waste. However, Chloe is not a new staff member. Chloe is a rapid food decomposing unit that has been recruited to turn organic food waste into nutrient-rich soil conditioner. Chloe works six days a week, getting one day's rest—I'm not sure I'm mad on those conditions—and goes through a whole day's waste, including meat scraps, in one day. What's more, it's not a smelly process. This machine sits in the restaurant, and you can put your hand in and feel the graininess of the food that's composted. Leura Garage are just incredible in the work they're doing. They're working on the big fix, looking at how they can most effectively use this decomposed material.

Another organisation doing great work is Scenic World. They have managed to save 100 tonnes of organic waste every year after installing their decomposing unit. I'm very proud of these things happening in my community.