Hepburn Shire Council is celebrating one year of organics recycling, with more than one tonne of food waste collected from kerbside organics bins since the program was rolled out.
April marked one year since 5,600 food and garden organic (organics) kerbside bins were delivered to township households across the Shire.
The organics bins allow residents to separate their food scraps, leftovers and garden clippings into their lime green-lidded bin, diverting the materials from landfill and saving them space in their red-lidded general rubbish/landfill bins (general rubbish).
Since the rollout, 1,264 tonnes of organic material have been collected from the kerbside organics bins and are being turned into compost at the Creswick Transfer Station.
Mayor, Don Henderson said that the one-year anniversary of organics collections was an important reminder to keep correctly sorting waste.
“We have seen a lot of positive change since the introduction of the food and garden organic kerbside collection service, and we are encouraging residents to continue to make the most of their recycling streams,” said Mayor Henderson.
“Now that township residents have had one year of the service, we are inviting the community to complete a resource recovery survey as part of our 12-month review of the service. The survey gives residents the opportunity to give feedback on the organic kerbside service as well as other resource recovery services in the Shire.
“We are interested to hear about the community’s experiences with the new kerbside service. We are also preparing to adopt further standards being mandated by the State Government and are seeking input from the community as to how we may best approach these changes to ensure a smooth transition.”
In 2021, before the rollout of the kerbside organics service, the Shire’s landfill diversion rate was 16.5%.
“Thanks to the hard work of our residents, as of March 2025 we now have a landfill diversion rate of 61.5%. This means that we are recycling materials more than ever before and reducing our collective impact on the environment. Removing organics from the general rubbish bin has resulted in a reduction of 2063.9 tonnes of CO2 emissions (equivalent),” the Mayor said.
The weekly kerbside organic rollout was coupled with a change to the general rubbish collections. Residents moved to a fortnightly collection cycle for their general rubbish bins which has seen a 24% reduction in landfill disposal over the last 12 months.
There are two surveys available, one for township residents and one for rural residents, have your say on the Participate Hepburn website.
