Bendigo and Marong residents will have to sort their organic waste for fortnightly pick-up from September if councillors pass a plan to change the process of rubbish collection on Wednesday night.
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A six-month trial of food and garden rubbish collection in parts of the city began last year, and yesterday the council announced its recommendation that a compulsory, fortnightly service be rolled out across the municipality.
Residual waste will continue to be collected on a weekly basis from red-topped rubbish bins.
But the fortnightly organic and weekly residual rubbish collection, which will add $63 to each household’s trash bill each year, was not the most popular model among trial participants.
A council survey in February found fifty-one per cent of participants preferred fortnightly collection of both bins, at a cost of just $35 per annum. Just 42 per cent favoured the recommended model.
Asked whether the council had a mandate to introduce organics collection, City of Greater Bendigo acting CEO Darren Fuzzard said the council “to a large extent made a decision” when developing its waste management strategy in 2014.
He said introducing a new service without affecting the collection of the preexisting bins would make it easier for the community to adjust.
“Changing the residual waste service at the same time as the organics makes it that much harder for the community to really get behind the initiative,” Mr Fuzzard said.
Bendigo mayor Rod Fyffe thanked the 2700 trial participants for their feedback, saying the half-year practice run proved a fortnightly organic service was “simply both the right thing and the smart thing to do”.
But Anthony Janssen, who runs local waste disposal business Greenaway Bins, does not agree.
His company began collecting green refuse from Bendigo kerbsides in 2009, taking the contents of its bins to Epsom Environmental Services.
The proposed council plan would bypass the Epsom site in favour of a treatment plant in Stanhope that, unlike the closely located competitor, has the capacity to deal with food waste.
Mr Janssen described the plan as expensive and unnecessary, saying he doubted council claims that as much as one-third of household rubbish was food waste.
He said community education and composting would be better ways to deal with food scraps, and eliminate the need to take the green waste outside of Bendigo.
But Mr Fuzzard told media on Monday households already composting their waste would be eligible for an exemption from organic waste fees, and would receive a financial incentive for carrying out their own trash management.
He also said the council would implement its own education programs, including “face-to-face, on the ground” support from personnel explaining to homeowners how to use the bins.
If council votes in favour of the green bin plan on Wednesday, the organics collection could go to a tender process. Mr Fuzzard welcomed a bid from Greenaway, saying the council's process of procurement contained provisions favouring local service providers.
Both the mayor and CEO said the introduction of new bins reduced the council’s environmental and financial liability.
While the cost of organic collection was actually $86 a year, savings from reduced landfill fees meant residents paid just $63 for the service annually.
Less waste in landfill will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Eaglehawk landfill released 24,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere last year, more than half of the city’s total reported emissions and a number council figureheads expected to drop with the implementation of organics collection.
