A pathway to reducing waste

Waste and Litter

Collecting food waste, preventing rubbish washing into the waterways and a trial container deposit system are some of the actions included in Council’s Waste and Litter Management Strategy 2025 which was formally adopted at Tuesday night’s Ordinary Council Meeting.

Over the next six years, Council will introduce a number of initiatives to drastically reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill, said Mayor of Hobsons Bay and joint Environmental Sustainability Portfolio Holder Councillor Jonathon Marsden.

“One of the most popular initiatives is a food waste collection service which will transform household food waste into compost used by food producers,” said Cr Marsden.

“Food waste accounts for 35 per cent of the waste currently sent to landfill so introducing a weekly food waste collection service and reducing our garbage waste collection to fortnightly would allow us to increase the amount of waste diverted from landfill by 20 per cent.

“This is a major change – we will start with a pilot of the food waste collection service later this year, before expanding the program to the entire community over the course of 2020.

“Other actions include the development of a Drainage Asset Management Plan to review opportunities to capture more litter from the drainage network, phasing out single use plastics in Council’s operations and improving community education on current waste and litter initiatives.

“Now that we have a plan, we are keen to get to work in the implementation.”

Joint Environmental Sustainability Portfolio Holder Cr Sandra Wilson said the adoption of the Waste and Litter Management Strategy was timely.

“The current global recycling crisis shows that we do not have the option of continuing business as usual – we must change our practices if we wish to remain sustainable.

“It is clear that our community is incredibly passionate about reducing waste and litter. Over the six week period this strategy was out for consultation, we received 87 responses through face-to-face and online engagement channels.

“Most of the comments supported the actions outlined in our draft strategy. We have made a few changes, including the trial of food waste collection systems and a new action to improve waste and resource recovery for multi-unit and mixed use developments, townhouses, industrial and commercial developments.

“This is an ambitious plan which will involve significant financial and resource investment from Council but our plan cannot succeed without the cooperation of the community.

“We have committed to doing our part and we sincerely hope that the community will come with us as we work together to reduce waste and recycle right.”

/Public Release. View in full here.