The City of Stirling in Western Australia has embarked on a innovative and comprehensive waste management program, to promote and assist the recycling and management of wastes by residents and ratepayers.Being Western Australia’s largest Local Government, the City of Stirling has 176,000 residents who live in 66,000 households and 10,000 home units.
In November 2001, Council, along with waste disposal contractors, the Atlas Group, introduced a waste management program that features a single bin recycling system. This system removes the need for householders to sort their domestic waste into various categories and instead uses a factory to do the sorting.
Council conducted four years of research along with a two year extended trial and two years of evaluation to test the system.
The waste management program has three main components, including its domestic waste recycling service, bulk waste Balcatta Transfer Station and bulk waste verge collections. Through this program, householders are entitled to a number of services including one 240 litre wheeling bin of which 65 percent of the contents are recycled; two tipping vouchers for the disposal of sorted clean green materials; three verge collections for bulky waste; three collections of used clothing and second hand goods; plus unlimited visits to the recycling area and household hazardous waste disposal area at the Balcatta Transfer Station.
The program’s implementation has resulted in the amount of domestic waste being diverted from landfill increasing from 10 percent to 47.5 percent in only four weeks, with contractors only having to process 50 percent of the domestic waste component.
For further information, contact Council’s Waste Services Development Officer, Viet Nysen, telephone (08) 9345 8685.
