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Autumn Traditions

Olive Harvesting

The colder winds of Autumn have finally arrived, and we are starting a new family tradition…Olive Harvesting.

When we first moved into our forever house, one of the first tasks on our renovation list was planting five olive trees. We purchased our trees from an olive farmer in the Hunter Valley, whose passion for his lifelong chosen craft was inspiring. Three generations of our family wandered through his orchard listening to the stories from over 50 years of propagation and planting experiments.

Fast forward five years, and most of our olive trees have an abundance of olives this year – our first harvest!

Olives have a special place in our family history. It’s funny how food can capture memories. When our daughter was a toddler, and I still worked in the city on Fridays, she would sit on the balcony in a highchair next to her Dad as they shared a cheese platter with olives while they waited for me to get home. About a year later, I happened to join them for their Friday afternoon session and jumped in alarm as our daughter put an olive with pip in her mouth. They both looked at me in disbelief. Little did I know she was an olive expert who had been eating them all year under Dad’s rules.

So, it turns out ‘making’ olives is a drawn-out process, which makes me appreciate them even more. We have harvested about half of our olives, deciding to keep the remaining ones on the tree to ripen further. After some reading, we have chosen to brine our olives, so we have our first batch weighed down in water and salt to cure. Whilst we are regularly inspecting and changing the water, I know the first indication that they are ready will be the olive level dropping as my daughter will not be able to resist sampling them as they sure! 🙂 If anyone has any tips, I would love to hear them. Fingers crossed we end up with amazing olives to share rather than extra ingredients for our compost bin.

I’m not confident my olive experiment will evolve into mass production, so it’s fortunate a lot is happening both within our team and across the FOGO and composting industries.

Supported by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), Australian Local Councils continue to implement FOGO with new composting facilities being opened to process food waste. If your local council is not yet offering this service, it’s likely it will be coming over the next few years.

NSW has also increased their focus on COFO (Commercial Food Organics) and have mandated that larger food waste generators such as supermarkets, producers, and shopping centres must have a dedicated food waste collection system by July. The mandate will increase to include more businesses over the next few years, and it is also expected that other states may follow to suit.

Residential FOGO Programs have been really successful in gaining community engagement and increasing participation. We are excited this momentum will expand to commercial waste.

The driver is clear. Food waste in Landfill is a massive greenhouse gas generator in Australia, contributing most of the 11 million tonnes of greenhouse gasses released from Landfill each year. That is equivalent to the annual emissions of about 3 million cars. To deliver the next step change it’s essential that commercial organisations also paly their role in reducing Landfill rates.

If you are looking to get your work team or local school involved in better recycling or food waste collection, we would recommend reviewing the range of recycling bins at Source Separation Systems, many of which are made in Australia from Post-Consumer Recycled Content (the recyclables in our yellow bins).

We are really proud to be supporting many communities and businesses as they make the transition to FOGO or COFO.

 

Enjoy Autumn.

Mel

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Recycled Christmas Tree Decorations

Christmas at Compost-A-Pak

Christmas at Compost-A-Pak

And just like that, suddenly our youngest can reach the top of the tree.

It’s a family tradition to rotate the important positioning of the angel each year. Usually it’s a somewhat precarious task as the kids are lifted to hover over the tree whilst everyone yells instructions at once. This year with a small step ladder, the Angel was in position within seconds.

Our beautiful silver Angel purchased pre-kids on our first international holiday then sits for the season, perched at a slightly strange angle watching proceedings.

Our tree is heavy with history and memories. After discussing ideas for a sustainable, reusable tree, Pete and our youngest built this over a very hot summer weekend a few years ago. They both take great pride in their construction with annual tales of the trial-and-error process.

Sustainable Holidays

The tree is decorated with second hand crystals, many from an old chandelier that hung at our wedding and wall lights which didn’t make the cut when we renovated. Other ornaments have been purchased, one every year since the kids could choose. Most years in the excitement of putting up the tree we seem to break a few, so now it’s an attrition and replacement process.

We then decorate the house with annual Santa photos, telling a typical family story, starting with a crying photo that Mum had to get in, pictures of new additions, cousins, and covid times with no Santa at all. As someone who tends to embrace the moment and forgets to take pictures, this Christmas display is even more special.

Christmas Snacks

 

Christmas will be quieter for us this year, with a smaller gathering.

We have been allocated predinner nibbles as part of our Christmas day feast, which I love. We keep it simple with small bites of lovely produce. By lining our creations up on plates, the dishes are elevated from a regular cheese platter to something more festive. There are two dishes which we always make. Poppy’s favourite home Marinated Figs and Fetta Toast. It’s a dish that is requested every year. We also often make Mini Roast Vegetable Tartlets. The best thing about both these dishes is that we pre-prep so on the day it’s only a matter of assembling everything. We then add a few other dishes. This year we are adding Cheddar Cheese and Quince Paste Biscuits we well as a Christmas Terrine and Gherkin Biscuit.

Our rosemary is in abundance, so we use newer twigs as a Christmas garland to dress up the plates.

Compost-A-Pak Christmas

Christmas will be a great chance for our amazing team to have a break and reflect on our achievements. 2024 has been a busy year for us as the industry has continued to evolve. It’s exciting to see FOGO being embraced across the country, with many other councils scheduled to roll out their programs in 2025. Some stage governments are also pushing for commercial organisations to do their bit to reduce the food waste being sent to Landfill, where it releases methane and contributes to global warming. Such legislation and investment will allow Australia to achieve further milestones in our Landfill diversion rates.

However, such great progress does come with challenges, and compost processing facilities continue to struggle with cheap ‘bio-hybrid’ bags that are hitting the market. If something is half plastic and half organic, it can’t be recycled and can’t be recycled and can’t be composted. It’s worse for the environment. Such products are marketed to confuse consumers and it’s a shame we don’t have stronger regulations to manage this risk. If in doubt, also check for Australian certifications on all compostable products.

 

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Mel

Sustainable Christmas

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Spot the difference

Autumn’s Lesson

Compostable Australia

The trees are about to show us how to let things go

-Anonymous 

I walked past this quote at the beginning of Autumn. It’s really stuck in my mind.

What a precious thing that nature shows us such splendour in the seasonal cycle.

New growth, spectacular displays, and then there is something so beautiful as the leaves change colour and drop.

Beauty in letting things go.

It’s an important thing to pause and consider. Our modern world bombards us with notions of what we should want, what we need. When in truth, letting things go can be more powerful.

Isn’t it ironic that so man people are finding more connections by letting go of social media. Or that studies show people find happiness in decluttering to live a simpler life without all the stuff we ‘need’.

Perhaps Autumn is inspiring a movement.

So, what could you let go of?

It’s halfway through Autumn, and I have a few things on my list. Kitchen clutter (I thought it was easiest to start there), social media, alcohol during weekdays, apologising for rushing when I’m living the amazing, crazy life that we have chosen…

Spot the difference

One thing that doesn’t change is our team’s commitment to providing sustainable, high quality products. There are so many confusing alternatives on the market now, with large multinationals diversifying their ranges. Many look sustainable, or make various claims. Many combine plastics with organic matter, making them non-compostable (whilst creating micro-plastics) and non-recyclable. Some claim to be made of coastal-bound plastic, which may mean it is simply processed in a factory miles from the coast. It’s a missed opportunity that we don’t have stronger consumer laws to assist families when they try to purchase sustainably.

Australian Certified Compostable Logo

However in the interim, if you are purchasing a compostable bag, make sure you look for the compostable logos, so you can be confident the product you have chosen is a genuine plant based material and can be composted without contaminating the FOGO compost bound for our community spaces. Compost-A-Pak is proudly made predominantly from third grade corn, a non-eating grade, which is otherwise a waste product, and we are very proudly Australian Certified compostable.

Recycled Kitchen Caddy

If you are purchasing a Kitchen Caddy, check on the origins of the plastic. Our Compost-A-Pak Caddy is made of almost 100% Post-Consumer recycled content. It’s basically items such as takeaway food containers which have been used by Melbourne families, placed into their yellow recycling bins, and then given another life. The manufacturing magic happens with the support of another Australian family business, who used to make car parts before the local car industry closed.

 

Thank you to all our amazing customers who consistently choose to purchase our sustainable products, tell their friends and provide feedback about our quality. Working with our amazing team on something we all believe so passionately in, is something I wouldn’t let go of.

 

Mel

Council bags

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