The Greater Bendigo City Council has voted to extend the City's organic waste collection to all rural households in Greater Bendigo in-line with the Victorian Government's state-wide kerbside reforms and the Recycling Victoria - a new economy policy.
City of Greater Bendigo Mayor Cr Andrea Metcalf said some 5,500 rural households in Greater Bendigo who currently do not receive the service, will be included in the service from November 2023.
"The City's organic waste service has been successfully operating in urban areas of Greater Bendigo since September 2016," Cr Metcalf said.
"In more recent years the service has been further extended to the townships of Heathcote, Elmore, Goornong and Axedale and it is now time to provide an organics collection service for all remaining rural households in Greater Bendigo.
"Rural households will not be charged for the new service in the current 2023/2024 financial year to provide them with an opportunity to become accustomed to the service. Charges for the service will only commence in the 2024/2025 financial year.
"Once the rural residents have utilised the organics service for six months they will be able to apply for an exemption in May 2024 if they can demonstrate the ability to manage their organic waste.
"The City will deliver a new organics kerbside bin, a kitchen caddy and a roll of compostable caddy liners along with a range of information to all rural households.
"Initially the new organic rural collections will be fortnightly on the opposite week to their recycling collection. However, commencing the week of Monday February 5, 2024 this will change, along with the rest of the municipality to weekly, with waste bins to be collected fortnightly.
"The change to a weekly organics collection and a fortnightly waste bin collection follows a service review completed in 2022, which found 46 per cent of rubbish in red general waste bins should either be in the recycling bin or the organics bin, and not be going to landfill. Of this, 28 per cent was organic food and garden waste.
"As a result of the review in early 2023 Council agreed to swap the collection of red general waste bins from weekly to fortnightly, and the collection of green organics bins from fortnightly to weekly.
"By making the switch to when general waste and organics bins are collected, the City's aim is to reduce the amount of general waste being collected and stop about 7,000 tonnes of organic material and 4,500 tonnes of recyclable material per year from going to landfill."
