Food Waste and Compliance

Businesses that prepare and sell food, such as restaurants, bakeries, hotels, fast food outlets and hospitals, have a responsibility to dispose of food waste appropriately.

Food waste containing meat, other animal by-products, some dairy products and any food that has come into contact with these prohibited foods must not be fed to pigs.

Some examples of food that must not be provided to farmers include:

• Vegetables, rice, pasta and other food that has been in direct contact with meat or meat products.
• Pizza bun rolls, meat pies.
• Bacon and cheese rolls, salad rolls containing meat.
• Caesar salad (because it contains bacon pieces).
• Steak, hamburgers, sausages, butcher’s shop waste.
• Milk products such as yoghurt, butter and cheese.

These foods can contain viruses that cause diseases in animals, such as foot-and-mouth disease. These viruses are not destroyed by chilling, freezing, curing or cooking.

Prohibited food waste should be placed in an appropriate garbage bin for collection by Council or commercial waste service for disposal in landfill or composting at an appropriate recycling facility.

Illegal activities include:

• Feeding prohibited food waste to pigs.
• Supplying prohibited food waste to feed pigs.
• Collecting prohibited food waste from food premises to provide to a piggery.

More information on these restrictions, included translated factsheets in Arabic, Mandarin and Vietnamese, is available from the Department of Economic Development.