Improving waste and recycling services

At tomorrow night's Council meeting agenda item 9.3 relates to a review of Council's free hard rubbish kerbside collection service. It also identifies future improvements/terms as recommended in the upcoming tender process.
The changes suggested especially in relation to ewaste are very welcome and I will be encouraging my collegues to support all the considerations and recommendations-Full details in item 9.3 on Council website - see under links.

From the agenda papers the review has found-
"There is high level of community satisfaction with Council’s Waste Management Services generally.Some people, however, would like Council to better address the issue of hard and illegal dumped rubbish on naturestrips.
The waste industry generally considers Council’s current method of hard rubbish collection best practice.
No other method of hard rubbish collection appears to provide a better deterrent to illegal rubbish dumping.

In retendering Council’s hard rubbish service, Council should consider:
o Options to increase recycling of hard and dumped rubbish
o Including ewaste recycling in the hard rubbish collection service
Recent changes to Federal Government legislation requires suppliers of electronic equipment to now fund the recycling of televisions and computers. These changes have reduced the cost of Council providing Ewaste collection days from about $120,000 to $55,000.
o Ways to increase proactive reporting of illegal dumped rubbish to reduce time
between dumping and removal
o Extending the hard rubbish collection service to working days over the
Christmas / New Year period.

Recommendation
That Council:
i. Continue with the current hard rubbish collection service method: on call,
presented on the naturestrip.
ii. Retender its Hard Rubbish Collection Service to
a. Include options for greater recycling of the rubbish as outlined in this paper
b. Include options for proactive reporting of dumped rubbish
c. Extend collection days to include all working days over the Christmas/New Year Period.
iii. Move to a kerbside collection of ewaste in 2013-14 ($120,000 already allowed in draft 2013-14 Budget for ewaste collection."

Ewaste - huge turnout at first collection day

Last Sunday ,the 26th Feb ,at the Glen Eira town hall car park, council ran the first of three ewaste collection days where TVs, computers and the like could be dropped off and disposed responsibly to be almost completely recycled- see prev postings.

Am pleased to report that approx 50 tonnes was disposed via over 1100 cars(ironically another interesting side-issue here) well above last years amount of 30 tonnes.

All ewaste disposed responsibly here is less that would have ended up on nature strips and in landfill - a great example of the community endorsing with their actions good environmental initiatives.

The next collection day is scheduled for-

Moorleigh Community Village
Saturday 24th March
8am-4pm

Ewaste collection days announced

The following three ewaste collection days will be held in the first half of this year. There was a great response to the collection days held last year with approx 80 tonnes of electronic waste including computers and TVs being almost completely recycled instead of otherwise going to landfill.

Collection days across Glen Eira will be:

Sunday 26 February — 8am–4pm
Glen Eira Town Hall, corner Glen Eira and Hawthorn Roads, Caulfield

Saturday 24 March — 8am–4pm
Moorleigh Community Village, 90–92 Bignell Road, Bentleigh East

Sunday 20 May — 8am–4pm
Carnegie Swim Centre, Moira Avenue, Carnegie

Funding for Ewaste and Public Recycling approved

Council voted last Tuesday to fund(approx $110k) three Ewaste collection days this financial year.This is very good news for residents and the environment alike.

After last years very successful collection days held in each ward, where record levels of uptake for Melbourne were recorded (29 tonnes at the town hall day- see prev posts), I felt it was always important to continue to provide this service.

There is an increasingly amount of EWaste incl TVS and computers in our community that was being placed out for hard rubbish disposal- ending up in landfill.

With Federal stewardship guidelines till several years away this was a very good decision.

Also for the first time recycling bins will be provided for in our major shopping strips. This program funded at $75k will be rolled out over the next six months.

Both of these fundings had been recommended by the Environment Advisory Committee which certainly does benefit from having the expertise of four external community members.

As I said in the chamber on Tuesday night in advocating for this funding, feel its important that Council does provide leadership on issues like this.

EWaste collection day-next Sun 15th May

The third electronic waste (ewaste) collection day where unwanted computers, monitors televisions etc can be dropped off will be held at

Sunday 15th May 8am - 4pm
carpark Moorleigh Community Centre
90-92 Bignell Rd East Bentleigh

It is a drive-in drive-out efficient process with staff collecting the items from carboots.

The previous collection days at Carnegie and Caulfield have been incredibly successful with record amounts collected-Almost all of the items collected can be broken down and recycled,reducing what would otherwise go to landfill.
The recent State budget raised landfill costs 10% above the prev govt's projected increases to a now $44 per tonne in 2011/12- in 08/09 it was $9 per tonne!

The Environmental Advisory committee will meet shortly to consider recommendations for further ewaste initiatives in the next financial year.

EWASTE Collection day update

The collection day held last Sunday at the Town Hall was another resounding success.

Over 1300 cars delivered importantly approx 50 tonnes! of ewaste that will be almost fully recycled.

A great turnout

Ewaste collection day - Town Hall Sun Feb 27th

The next ewaste collection day will be held at the Town Hall carpark (cnr Hawthorn and Glen Eira rds) from 8am to 4pm.

This is the second of three collection days scheduled for this financial year after council last year allocated upto $ 64k to trial this service in each ward.

The first held in Carnegie in October was a resounding success with approx 27 tonnes of ewaste that included the likes of TVs and computers collected for recycling that otherwise would have ended up in landfill.

Ewaste that is being put out with hard rubbish has been an ever increasing problem especially in recent years as anyone driving or riding around the streets of Glen Eira will testify to. The practical enactment of national codes governing this problem is still several years away - these days provide some opportunity for residents to dispose of their ewaste in an environmentally responsible way.

E-Waste collection day in Carnegie

E-Waste , electronic waste that includes discarded TVs and computers is a growing problem across all municipalities.

Whilst the vast bulk of this waste is able to be recycled up,until now in Glen Eira this has all ended up in landfill as part of the hard rubbish collection- one has to only drive around our streets to see the exent of the problem.

In this years budget council has allocated funds to run three e-waste collection days across the wards . Residents will be able to responsibly discard of all their ewaste at these drop off points.

The first day will be held at the

Carnegie Pool carpark
Moira Ave
off Koornang Rd Carnegie

Saturday 9th October
8am - 4pm

E-WASTE - improving recycling in Glen Eira

E-Waste , electronic waste that includes such items as computers and TVs is becoming an ever increasing problem across all municipalities. With the digital age coming many more thousands of items in Glen Eira will continue to be collected as hard rubbish, ending up in landfill.

The issue of e-waste going in to landfill is not just the concern about toxins leaching into the ground and ultimately the water table or the amount of space e-waste occupies. Research shows that using recycled materials (plastic, metals, etc) produces up to 80% less carbon emissions than processing virgin materials.

Several of our surrounding councils do recycle their e-waste and I feel Glen Eira should too. I understand there are a number of ways of doing this but the preferable one is to separate ewaste on collection , store and engage a commercial recycler to collect. What is collected is broken and separated down so that at least 95% of the ewaste is recycled.

I will be requesting a presentation be given to council in the next few weeks from an organisation like Sustainability Victoria that will inform and educate on the latest developments and costings on this issue. Hopefully this will lead council to support an ewaste recycling scheme