CLEAN UP YOUR ACT, GEELONG
City to rummage in your rubbish because you just can’t get your recycling right
MORE than a third of Geelong’s kerbside recycling is still being dumped in landfill, as residents continue to throw massive amounts of non-recyclables into their yellow bins.
The city this week launched yellow bin inspections across the municipality, as it urged ratepayers to clean up their act.
MORE than a third of Geelong’s kerbside recycling is still being dumped in landfill, as residents continue to throw massive amounts of non-recyclables into their yellow bins.
The city’s new recycling operator Cleanaway has even reported finding gas bottles, car batteries, car parts and hotwater systems in the recycling they receive.
Cleanaway took over the city’s kerbside recycling in December, after more than 10,000 tonnes of recycling was dumped in landfill last year at a cost of about $1.5 million to the city following the collapse of the previous operator SKM Recycling.
But in just its first month of operating in Geelong, Cleanaway reported contamination levels of about 35 per cent — meaning more than a third of what went into recycling bins ended up in landfill.
Soft plastics — including plastic bags — are the biggest recycling contaminants, with residents urged not to bag recycling before putting it in the yellow bin.
The city this week launched yellow bin inspections across the municipality, as it urged ratepayers to improve recycling contamination rates.
Council officers will follow collection trucks to view what is being put into yellow bins, with those dumping obvious contaminants receiving a sticker on their bin clarifying what can and can’t be recycled.
Officers will then ‘liaise directly’ with residents who repeatedly fail to clean up their act.
Council waste management chair Ron Nelson urged residents to better understand what could go in the yellow bins.
“We are calling on all residents to help us lower our recycling contamination rates in Greater Geelong and reduce what we send to landfill,” Cr Nelson said.
“This will help reduce what is sent to landfill, therefore reducing our impact on the environment.”
Recycling throughout Victoria is also set to receive a much-needed boost, with reports the State Government is set to announce by the end of the month the introduction of a container-deposit scheme.
It was reported this weekend that an announcement on the scheme was imminent but that it would not be operational until 2023.
City of Greater Geelong Mayor Stephanie Asher said the council would now push the State Government to bring the long-awaited cash-for-container scheme to Geelong
“I think that’s one of the things we can drive really, really hard,” Cr Asher said on Monday.
In May last year the city urged the Government to launch the scheme, in a submission to the Victorian Parliament’s Inquiry into Recycling and Waste Management.