Campaspe Shire Council is commending the community for it's recycling as these daily habits greatly impact the sustainability of our community. A recent audit on kerbside recycling contamination has shown positive change by Campaspe residents when recycling at home - overall, recycling contamination has reduced by nearly 4% since 2024, with bagged recycling and soft plastic contamination also showing a promising decline.
Campaspe Shire Mayor, Cr Daniel Mackrell commended the community's efforts.
"It's great that more Campaspe residents are using their yellow bins for the right items, as it makes a big difference in making sure we can reuse materials where possible and helping us all in the long run.
"With drop-off points for clothing and electronic waste around our shire, we can make sure that items we no longer have use for can be saved from landfill and given a second life," Cr Mackrell added.
To assist with educating the community on recycling correctly and reducing contamination, Council was successful in a grant application to Sustainability Victoria (SV) for education on the topic. Messaging to encourage residents to recycle their items loose and ensure only recyclable items go into their yellow bins was shown across radio, e-billboard, mobile billboard, cinema and social media advertising.
To make recycling easier, the grant funding will also be used to create and deliver a 'Quick Sort Guide' fridge magnet to all residents. At a glance, the guide will provide clarity on which bin different waste items should go into.
Council's Director of Sustainability, Michael Sharp, emphasised the importance of ongoing improvement.
"Clothes, e-waste and soft plastic packaging contaminate the kerbside recycling stream. They cause problems with sorting machinery and don't belong in yellow bins. E-waste can also cause fires in trucks and sorting facilities.
"The good news is that kerbside recycling contamination has dropped by 4%, or 108 Tonnes a year and when you consider that the PS Adelaide paddle steamer weighs 58 Tonnes, 108 Tonnes is a huge amount of jumpers, batteries and plastic chip packets that are no longer contaminating our recycling," Mr Sharp said.
To find out where and how you can dispose of waste items Australia-wide, check out recyclemate.com.au
For Council's A-Z and quick sort guides, go to campaspe.vic.gov.au/WhatBin
