From small plastics to objects as egregious as rounds of ammunition, lawnmower parts and gas bottles, ABC News reports.
Those are just some of the things that have had to be pulled out what is supposed to be just household food and garden waste by the industry that processes Australia's Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) bins.
Even the body of a deceased pet dog was discovered in one delivery to a Sydney processing plant.
A hand grenade was once found in the waste at another facility.
Among Australia's more than 500 councils, 27 per cent of them have rolled out the three-bin FOGO system to homes and businesses while a further 16 per cent collect garden waste only.
But as more councils get on board, the industry that processes the waste into compost is speaking out about the concerning level of "contamination", mainly plastics.
Fourteen years since the first FOGO bin system was introduced, Patrick Soars, who runs a processing plant in the Sydney suburb of Badgerys Creek, is worried the level of public engagement in FOGO is going down, not up.
"There's a lot of people out there that really don't care," he said.
"They think recycling is a joke. It's not. We're deadly serious."
So, why so serious?
For a start, Mr Soars said the massive amount of food waste that ends up in landfill is an environmental nightmare, creating harmful methane, adding to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.
He said it can be recycled into nutrient-rich compost for farmers to grow food — part of the much-discussed circular economy, where waste is "recaptured" as a resource.
Mr Soars would like to see as much as possible of the estimated 2.5 million tonnes of food thrown out by Australian households each year diverted.
"There's an endless market in agriculture providing we can remove contaminants and basically it ends up back in the soil as a carbon source and a nutrient source," he said.
FULL STORY
FOGO system 'overwhelmed' by plastics as industry urges public to get behind rollout (ABC News)
PHOTO
Patrick Soars believes there needs to be more education across the country about the benefits of recycling food scraps.(ABC News: Ross Byrne)
