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."

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.

Recycling rates increase in Glen Eira

Last year there was a tremendous take-up of the bin downsizing program throughout the municipality- Approx 60% of households changed over to a 120 litre size weekly garbage bin- the standard size thoughout metopolitan Melbourne. Before the change-over Glen Eira were relatively wooden spooners on the recycling ladder- recent figures contrasting a year ago indicate this has now changed. From a 34% rate for diversion from landfill to now 44.9% is a great improvement - - total recycling (recylables and green waste) is now 30% higher - total garbage is 15% lower We are also now spending less on landfill costs saving approx $250k per year - good for the environment and the balance sheet!