Hepburn Shire Council is heralding the rollout of its food and garden organics (FOGO) waste service as a success.
Changes to the kerbside collection in Hepburn Shire townships started in April and included the introduction of a weekly FOGO service for Creswick, Daylesford, Hepburn, Hepburn Springs and Trentham and the change to fortnightly general rubbish collection, with recycling remaining fortnightly.
About 5,550 households across the region are now receiving the FOGO service.
Mayor, Brian Hood says early indications are that the service is working for the broader community and helping to meet Council’s environmental goals.
“The results so far show a 26% reduction in waste sent to landfill over the five-month period,” he said.
“This means greenhouse gas emissions have been avoided thanks to the efforts of our community – who must be congratulated for taking on the change so well.”
The changes to Council’s waste service respond to the requirements of the Victorian Circular Economy (Waste Reduction and Recycling) Act 2021 which states that councils must provide services for collection of general rubbish, recycling, food and garden organics (and separate glass).
Around 443 tonnes of organic materials (8 April until end of August) have been collected for composting and will improve local soils.
“We know that overall people want to do what’s right for the environment and by using the new service that’s exactly what people are doing. Our contamination rate within the organics bin is only 1.6%,” said Mayor Hood.
Inspections undertaken two months into the project showed that most of the contamination comes from a small number of bins. The main contaminants were food in containers, bagged organics, nappies and textiles.
“Our contamination rates are currently low, and we keep this low and recover and recycle as much waste into a reusable product that we can,” said Mayor Hood.
“When organics or recycling is contaminated the cost for all of us increases. Using the organics service is one way that the community and visitors to the region can help reduce their environmental impact and it is a key goal in Hepburn’s Sustainable Hepburn Strategy and Council Plan.
“We heard of concerns about the changes during the run up to the implementation, including at the pop-up information sessions, however early results indicate while there are still some areas for improvement most people have been able to embrace and excel at these new processes,” he said.
Council has been supporting residents to reduce their waste to landfill through the Reusables Voucher Trial (including items such as period products and modern cloth nappies). This trial was successful with all 120 vouchers being used. The program will run again this financial year, the Mayor confirmed.
“We understand that there are still some in the community who may be struggling with these changes. There are options for people who still find the fortnightly rubbish a challenge and we ask that they contact our Customer Experience Team to find out more about additional bin services,” he said.
Processing of the organic material is continuing at Creswick Transfer Station. Council received grants to upgrade the site, and the new and improved units operated by Gaia EnviroTech are now operational.
Audits of kerbside bins are planned in the coming months to provide more information on the diversion of organics that has been achieved.
“We understand these changes have provided some challenges, but we appreciate the effort the community has gone to place items in the correct bins, put the correct bins out, inform us of issues, reduce waste to landfill and to help create great quality compost to improve local soils,” said Mayor Hood.
