Most of the organic matter (vegetable scraps, lawn clippings, leaves etc) from your house can get recycled into your garden promoting healthy soil. If you don’t choose to compost this recyclable waste then it will go to scarce landfill sites and likely break down in a non beneficial manner (by producing more greenhouse gases than necessary). Often you will be able to save half of the space in your bin each week by composting!

You can compost efficiently with a couple of moderate sized compost bins and a combination of green organic matter (vegetables from the house, fresh lawn clippings) and brown organic matter (brown leaves, shredded newspaper, old dried out lawn clippings).  A couple of basic tips:

• Try and add at least as much brown matter to green matter in your compost bin each time – and keep the mixture moist but not wet.
• Try using two moderate sized compost bins rather than one large bin – this allows you to have one bin actively taking waste while one bin completes the last stages of composting ready to put in the garden (some large compost bins with multiple layers are also available).
• Use an aerator to mix materials and help speed up the composting process.
• Ensure your compost bins are in contact with the soil to allow movement of beneficial microorganisms and worms.
• Ideally locate your bins in a part sun part shade position to keep warm without ‘cooking’ in the middle of summer.

Worm farms are also a composting option mainly for the food scraps from your house – on their own however worm farms do not have the ability to manage as much organic matter as a compost bin system.




The recommended combination of composting tools that will suit most lots at The New Rouse Hill should cost less than $100 (the Bunnings website offers a large range of composting products including the two bins and compst mixer in the diagram above).

Great detailed information on composting is supplied by the Hills Shire Council.

At The New Rouse Hill we are lucky that the Hills Shire Council provides an excellent waste management and recycling service. Green waste that is unsuitable for composting and recyclable materials are both catered for separately.

Remember that the steel cans used for canned food, milk cartons and many of the plastic storage containers used to package food can be recycled. On plastic containers look for the small Universal Recycling Symbol (a triangle made up of three arrows) to indicate if it can be recycled.

Please refer to the Hills Shire Council website for further detailed information.

What about hard to manage waste like paint, chemicals and batteries?

Certain wastes are not suitable for disposal in landfill or should be recycled. These wastes include:

• Chemical waste (including paints) and hazardous chemicals.
• Batteries, appliances, mobile phones, computers, TVs.

Please visit the Hills Shire Council website to put dates in your calendar for pick up or drop off services for difficult to manage wastes.