From 1 October, there are some changes to what can go in your kerbside organics bin. Residents can place food scraps, garden material, raw timber and the caddy liners provided by the City in their organics bin. By keeping only these items in the bin, we can help turn more organic waste into valuable compost and reduce contamination.
What can go in the organics bin:
- All food, including cooking scraps, expired food, meat, seafood, bones, citrus, and dairy products
- Garden material, including lawn clippings, pruning’s, weeds and branches (less than 10cm in diameter)
- Compostable liners provided by the City (no other brands)
- Natural timber (untreated, unstained)
What can no longer go in the organics bin and what bin it should go in:
- All cardboard, including raw cardboard and pizza boxes (Recycling bin)
- All clean paper products, including newspapers (Recycling bin)
- Soiled, greasy paper and shredded paper (General waste bin)
- Paper towel and tissues (General waste bin)
- Wooden skewers, cutlery and toothpicks (General waste bin)
- Pet waste, including dog poo, cat poo and kitty litter (General waste bin)
- Hair and animal fur (General waste bin)
- Tea bags (General waste bin)
- Bioplastics, such as takeaway coffee cups and containers, including those with the AS 4736 logo (General waste bin)
City of Greater Bendigo Resource Recovery and Education Acting Manager Sam Johnston said the City has engaged a new processor, Western Composting Technology (WCT) to turn food and garden organics collected from local households into high-quality recycled compost.
“WCT have built a new commercial composting facility in Huntly, and this means the City will no longer need to transport organic material outside of Greater Bendigo for processing,” Mr Johnston said.
“Our new processor WCT has several measures in place to prevent contamination and to maximise the quality of the compost they produce which means that some of the things we used to accept can no longer go in your organics bin.
“Processing organics locally is an important step towards a more circular economy, where resources are recycled and reused close to where they are generated. It has also created jobs for our region and will help reduce the carbon footprint of managing our organic waste.
“More than 52,000 households in Greater Bendigo are provided with a weekly organics collection service and over 580 businesses, 75 schools and early learning centres in Greater Bendigo have signed up to receive an organics collection service.
Since commencing the service in 2016, the City has collected over 146,751 tonnes of organic material through the service, which has been processed into reusable compost and returned to productive use.”
