With fewer than 10 years until Australia hopes to reach its goal of halving food waste, a new report has outlined actions needed now.
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A reduction of 3.65 megatonnes in the next nine years must be achieved, according to The Monash Sustainable Development Institute and OzHarvest.
In the Border and North East, a key part of waste recovery is Wangaratta's Organics Processing facility - which turned one earlier this year.
Wangaratta council infrastructure services director Marcus Goonan said currently, the facility is operating at less than half its capacity.
"We're starting to talk about what the next steps are; we're licensed for 500,200 tones," he said.
"We can scale up through EPA approvals.
"We're taking the amount of organics that we currently have within the municipality and certainly we have plans to be able to expand that ... we may be able to win contacts for other councils."
Albury-Wodonga's green waste goes to Wagga and Wangaratta's did go to Biomix near Shepparton - now, it only has to travel 15 minutes north.
At the Bowser East facility, staff pick out rubbish from the waste before shredding it, and keeping it in temperature-controlled bunkers for 28 days.
Pasteurisation kills off bacteria and the organic matter is then put in windrows, where it is turned and watered for more weeks.
"It ends up like what you can buy at Bunnings" - and while the compost is currently being used for landfill capping, it's hoped one day it can be sold to residents.
"We'd love to see ourselves as a regional processing facility here; we've got the capacity to take more material and we have the land to expand further," Mr Goonan said.
"That all really comes down to an EPA process and consultation.
"It's nice to be ahead of the game and gives us some time to start thinking about four bins."
All 79 Victorian councils will implement a fourth bin by 2024 and funding recently became available to purchase bins and improve facilities.
Council's waste management co-ordinator Courtney Naughton is getting into planning now.
"Our council is looking at whether we implement that earlier or on that date," she said.
"We assume it'll be a glass bin for the urban residents and collection or drop-off points for rural residents - the finer details are yet to be worked out.
"Glass is a huge contamination in all the bins - it gets into the paper and affects the processing.
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"Australia went to commingled recycling nearly 20 years ago and we haven't really looked at that system until China started not accepting our materials because of the contamination.
"A lot of countries separate glass."
Just as glass has a huge impact on recycling, so does plastics contamination in green waste.
"It's the little things that count like the ties from bread bags or stickers on fruit," Ms Naughton said.
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Mr Goonan said the current three bin system was positive and four bins would achieve even more.
"There's a lot of movement in this space," he said.
"It's something we have to do - we're all running out of landfill."