Tess Sapia from the Onkaparinga Council spoke with our group, answered our many questions, facilitated a garbage game, and gave out some stickers and hand outs.
It was an excellent evening, and for those who were unable to attend, I wanted to pass on this information:

Recycling Facts that you might not know -

These can be recycled in our yellow bins -
All hard plastic is now recyclable regardless of the number on the base. Anything that you cannot crush in your hands is accepted including ice cream containers, and yoghurt tubs.

These get reused or go into the red rubbish bin -
Small snap off type yoghurt containers that usually come in packs of 4.
Strawberry & cherry tomato containers, and the inserts of biscuit and cake packets.
Polystyrene trays that often contain meat products.
Did you know that all lids must be removed? This allows the containers to be compressed into a cube for transport; workers at Solo otherwise have to manually remove the lids! These lids need to go in the waste bin, unfortunately they cannot be recycled, the small ring that is left on the neck of the bottle is OK.

These Cannot be put in yellow bins but can be recycled -
Mobile phones, compact fluoro globes, and all batteries can go to the Willunga Environment centre.
All plastic bags cannot go in the yellow bin, but Coles and Woolies will take them.
Aluminium that can be easily crushed such as foil, pie tins, yoghurt lids, takeaway containers and chocolate wrappers cannot be recycled by Solo, so please leave out of the yellow bin. However, Chas M will take them, so collect them and place them in the bin provided in Sue E’s carport or leave with Jacqui G.

It is important to get it right because if the driver notices contamination as s/he tips the load into the truck, a decision is made to take the truck straight to landfill. So we can have an impact on the entire truck load going to the right place! Some of the contamination received includes the following:  food, clothing, basket balls, bags, electrical cords, & hoses, the last two are very hazardous to the recycling plant as they can become caught up in the machinery!
Onkaparinga's contamination rate is 15-24% at present.

Food Waste
Onkaparinga Council sells worm farms and compost bins "at cost" passing on the savings to the consumer, (cheaper than Bunnings) to encourage backyard composting and recycling. The council is very keen to reduce food waste going to landfill; apparently 50% of household waste (in the red bins) is food. (Yes they do bin audits!) If you must throw out food, because it is not suitable for your compost/chooks/wormfarm, it is much better to put it in your green waste bin, as this goes straight to Peats Soils in Willunga to be composted.

Bridget - for WMG