Southern Grampians residents who don’t sort their rubbish properly face fines and being banned from having their bins collected, under new council policies.
What happened: Southern Grampians Shire Council unanimously adopted its Kerbside Waste Contamination Policy at Tuesday’s meeting, introducing a three-strike system to educate locals before issuing a penalty.
The policy comes as the council prepares to move to its new organics waste facility, announced in July.
How will it work? If locals sort rubbish incorrectly, they will in the first instance receive a sticker on their bin advising them of what material had been placed in the wrong bin. A second incident would result in another sticker and contact from the council.
If a person sorted their rubbish incorrectly on a third occasion, a fine would be issued. The amount has not been specified by council. Further infringements could see a resident’s bins no longer being emptied.
One wrong move: Infrastructure and sustainability director Marg Scanlon told the meeting that placing one incorrect item, as small as a coffee cup or longlife carton, in a recycling bin can contaminate an entire truckload of yellow bin waste.
Council says this is happening between 15 and 20 times a day.
“Once it's gone into the kerbside bin, then into the heavy vehicle, that's the immediate contamination. So that's really step one in terms of that contamination process,” she said.
“That load is impacted. That then gets processed further with that contamination, so it's the cost of dealing with it as a contaminated load, but also the operational impacts.”
The council’s rubbish trucks use cameras to detect contamination, but Scanlon said there’s no way to separate the contents of a contaminated bin once it’s been emptied into a truck.
The consequences: Contaminated loads are sent to landfill. The council agenda said contaminated organic waste loads cost $311 a tonne to dispose of, compared with $185 a tonne for material to be sorted through the organics processing service.
According to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water, organic waste in Australian landfills generates about 13 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually.
Councillor Jayne Manning questioned who would be responsible if bins were contaminated by people who might be passing by.
Scanlon said the person responsible for the bin would be held accountable, but an appeal process was available. Tenants, not landlords, would be held accountable.
Now what? There will be a six-month grace period, in which council hopes to educate more people on knowing what goes where.
You can access council’s A-Z Waste Guide here.