The year to be green in rubbish collection
The year for organic bin collections will be put to the test this week as households generate three times as much waste as usual over the Christmas holidays.
Albury, Wodonga, Corowa and Indigo council areas all switched to an organic mode of waste collection in 2015 with the introduction of green bins.
The region was celebrating in both NSW and Victoria earlier this year when an audit of kerbside waste found it was the best for recycling across both states.
Combined, the four councils had an average diversion rate away from landfill of 82 per cent.
The state targets for kerbside household waste recycling were 70 per cent for NSW and 65 per cent for Victoria.
Wodonga Council’s green team this week urged residents to continue making full use of the new bins.
Bones, shells, paper napkins and oil soaked paper towels can all go in the green bin.
The Friends of Willow Park group joined the plea, saying anyone who lived near the city’s parks had no reason to throw away food scraps because of the many bins available.
“There are ample ways to dispose of barbecue and kitchen waste,” the group said in its newsletter.
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“This new policy should avoid an all-too-frequent and unfortunate summer habit of throwing over the back fence into parkland the food scraps that are not used during summer barbecues.”
Wodonga’s Uniting Church or Birallee House will also welcome donations of extra canned and dried foods, especially during the holiday season.
The Victorian government has planned to launched a pilot program, to avoid food waste ending up in landfill, targeted at councils.
The locations of the pilot will not be known until next year.
The proposal was contained in the draft Community and Business Waste Education Strategy, released this month.
The report found households wasted about $39 on unused food and drink each week and $2000 a year, which added up to $4 billion across Victoria.
Households can expect extra pressure to continue recycling from the government’s plan for an information campaign around minimising food waste.