Food scraps into weekly green waste collections, fortnightly rubbish bin collections, glass recycling and new bin lid colours are key changes identified in the Baw Baw Shire Council Draft Waste Management Plan 2020-2025.
Council endorsed the draft plan at its meeting last Wednesday and is encouraging the community to share their views during the consultation period.
The draft plan reflects the changes outlined in the Victorian Government's Recycling Victoria: a new economy policy and 10-year action plan, which was released in February 2020.
The Recycling Victoria policy outlines a range of measures to move towards a circular economy by reducing waste and pollution, improving recycling and creating more jobs.
To accommodate the new waste services outlined in Recycling Victoria, Council has undertaken extensive transition planning this year to inform the development of the draft WMP.
The draft WMP identifies how Council can implement the following changes required as part of Recycling Victoria:
- The provision of food organics and garden organics (FOGO) kerbside collection services by 2030.
- The provision of a separate recovery systems for glass (currently included in the kerbside commingled recycling service) by 2027.
- Upgrading kerbside bin lids to ensure they are consistent with colours specified in Recycling Victoria.
The Victorian Government is also introducing a Container Deposit Scheme (CDS) in 2022/23.
This will result in community members being able to recycle their bottles and cans at local glass drop-off locations to receive a refund. How the community engage with the CDS service will ultimately influence which service Council decides to introduce.
The draft WMP covers all other aspects of the waste services that Council provides to the community, including:
- kerbside waste collection
- kerbside disposals and processing
- the closed Trafalgar landfill site
- transfer stations
- hard waste
- street litter bins
- e-waste
- littering and illegal dumping
- education and engagement to reduce, re-use and recycle, and to support key service changes.
During December and January Council will host a range of community engagement activities across the Shire to share information about the draft plan, listen to your feedback and ideas and answer any questions.
