"It's early days yet," minister Steven Miles says, but the idea is to stop the food from simply being dumped in landfill and instead using it to build a compost. "We are providing $80,000 to Gold Coast Council to begin trials with Gold Coast hospitality businesses to see if we can recycle their food waste and stop that waste going into landfill," he said. There are around 1000 hospitality businesses in the Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach area, Mr Miles said. "And about 50 per cent of their waste is food waste, which currently goes to landfill, he said. "We're hoping that using the impetus that we gain from the partnership that we can divert that away from landfill and recycle it."

The answer to "how" will be the main outcome of the trial, Dr Miles said. "This stage of the project is primarily about identifying how much there will be, how we can collect it and what we can do with it," he said. "It is most likely that it will end up in some form of compost and we would love to see that compost used in the parks and gardens that make the Gold Coast such a beautiful place." The trial among 10 of the Gold Coast's leading hospitality and catering businesses includes leftovers from plates and raw materials as food dishes are prepared. "Many people are unaware that food preparation generates significant waste, particularly in a commercial setting," Mr Miles said.

It could simply mean a new "yellow top bin" in commercial kitchens, he said, but he said that was what the trial would show. "This trial is about designing a system that will be easy for businesses to use and to separate out their waste." The trial will lead up to the 2018 Commonwealth Games where it is proposed to put the scheme to a larger test, Commonwealth Games Minister Stirling Hinchliffe said. Mr Hinchliffe said 900 tonnes of waste was produced at the venues alone at the previous Commonwealth Games in Glascow. "And a significant proportion of that would be able to be recycled under a green waste facility that is being proposed here in this trial," he said.

Mr Hinchliffe said the bigger future impact of the trial would be a new system to separate out food waste and turn it to compost rather than landfill. "Some of the big restaurants and hotel chains here on the Coast are very excited about how they can reduce their waste stream," he said. Charlie Whitcombe from Surfer's Paradise's Catalina Cafe said he believed it was a scheme that would catch on. "We're going to have a lot of extra customers during the Games and we think, once we start, it will become a fixture." The first trial results will be relayed to other Queensland councils and hopefully expanded in the future, Dr Miles said.