The Greater Bendigo City Council has adopted a new Waste and Resource Management Strategy at Wednesday’s Council Meeting, aiming to encourage more recycling and reduce the waste it collects from kerbside collections.
“In the strategy we have set key targets to reduce the average residual waste disposal by half from 642kg per household to 320 kg per household, improve the kerbside diversion rate from 26 percent to 60 percent and reduce the amount of recyclables disposed of in the waste bin from 77kg per household to 40kg per household per year by 2019,” said Greater Bendigo Mayor Councillor Barry Lyons.
He added that Council is still looking for a solution to reach food and green waste targets.
“The community has told us that they want an efficient, convenient, safe and sustainable resource management system that minimises the costs and risks to ratepayers and the targets we have set in the strategy are important to achieving this.”
Key recommendations of the strategy include, introduction of a solution for food and garden organics, introduction of optional 360 litre recycling bins to residents wishing to increase their recycling capacity, no new landfill development when the current landfill reaches its capacity, introduction of an education and awareness program to support strategy initiatives and the promotion of hard waste deposit services.
“In the development of this strategy a number of key objectives were identified as important to the community and business sectors including the need to reduce waste and increase resource recovery and the diversion of organic waste from landfill,” he said.
“And while the strategy’s focus is on the domestic waste stream it does acknowledge that the City also provides waste services to the business and industry sector on a commercial basis at our landfill site.”
