Canberra households are throwing out containers worth $1 million a year in refunds from the territory's container deposit scheme, while 10 per cent of general waste should be sent to recycling.

Households in the ACT now generate an average of 8.8 kilograms of waste a week, a 2024 audit found, which is 1.5 kilograms less than two years earlier.

But up to 47 per cent of the average household's weekly waste is food, which will eventually be collected as part of the government's planned city-wide food and organic waste service that will convert household scraps into compost.

Households who already have the food and garden organics (FOGO) service, as part of a trial, generate similar amounts of recycling, 45 per cent less general waste and 10.7 kilograms of FOGO material weekly. More than 60

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