THE City of Greater Bendigo will aim to reduce residents' waste by half, by possibly banning food and garden waste from household rubbish bins.
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Councillors adopted the 2014-2019 Waste and Resource Management Strategy at Wednesday’s meeting.
It aims to reduce the average residual waste disposal from 642kg per household to 320kg and reduce the amount of recyclables from 77kg per household to 40kg per household per year by 2019.
The plan includes banning food and garden waste, introducing a larger 360-litre recycling bin, greater community education and a commitment to reduce littering and illegal dumping.
Council will also consider not introducing new landfill development when the current Eaglehawk Landfill reaches its capacity.
It says it will not introduce a kerbside hard waste collection service, but existing enterprises that service this need will be further promoted.
The strategy was developed, revised and adopted following extensive consultation with more than 3000 community members and key stakeholders.
Mayor Barry Lyons said the council would explore all options in order to meet the "challenging" target.
"We plan to explore all options and solutions available ... but as yet we have not decided on any one option," he said.
“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."
“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.
“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."
The strategy can be viewed at www.bendigo.vic.gov.au
