Greater Shepparton City Council adopted its new kerbside waste collection policy at its February 21 meeting, incorporating changes in line with the Victorian Government’s plan to overhaul waste and recycling.
The state recycling policy includes a target of diverting 80 per cent of waste from landfill by 2030 and to provide access to four waste and recycling streams: glass, food organics and garden organics, mixed recyclables and household rubbish.
Council’s updated policy sees the kerbside waste service change to collection of the green FOGO bin weekly, red general waste and yellow recycling fortnightly (on alternate weeks), and a purple glass bin monthly — once it is introduced in March 2024.
This change is being rolled out next month for Kialla and Tatura only to trial the new collection frequency and will be implemented across the rest of the municipality by March 2024.
It aims to encourage consistent separation of household waste and recycling and reduce the amount of FOGO and recycling sent to landfill.
City of Greater Shepparton Mayor Shane Sali said there would be education and information to guide the community through what would be a big change.
“We as councillors are going to go through this and we’re going to make sure the information is as clear as it possibly can be and walk side-by-side with everyone through this,” Cr Sali said.
“The staged rollout allows us to weed out any potential issues that arise and get some feedback before we go to the whole community.”
Cr Fern Summer was the only councillor to vote against adopting the policy and said she was not comfortable with it nor convinced that it was the right move.
Cr Summer listed concerns with council’s waste modelling, burden on households to manage the bins, and that rubbish dumping or overflow could come from the change.
“I would prefer if this was deferred until after an assessment of the recent waste audit to see if some of those questions could be answered and I also believe the onus should be on manufacturers to reduce waste to landfill not the users,” she said.
The kerbside waste audit in September 2022 found red general waste bins from Greater Shepparton rural properties were almost a third full of FOGO waste — information that was used to confirm the need for a standardised service across the municipality.
It followed a 2021 audit of township properties, which found more than half of the waste in red bins was FOGO.
Council’s updated policy also recognises some residents will need different bin sizes or additional bins, and exemptions to the standard service will be subject to council approval.
For information on the changes visit greatershepparton.com.au/kerbside-collection-changes-faq or call council on (03) 5832 9700.
