Climate Action Merribek: people in Brunswick, Coburg, Fawkner and Glenroy wanting action on climate change

Moving towards zero waste in Moreland by 2030

August 19, 2018 at 6:24 pm John Englart 2 comments

Time to reduce our waste and the embedded emissions in waste to landfill. Moreland Council has already set a target of zero waste to landfill by 2030. Now we need to make this happen.

Everyone has heard about China refusing to take recycling with high levels of contaminants. We have also had huge stockpiles of recycling materials at Coolaroo in Hume Municipality which has resulted in a number of fires, with heavy smoke blowing over Moreland, residential evacuations, and contamination of Merlynston Creek waterway.

Each year the cost to Moreland ratepayers of the collection and landfilling of general waste from households amounts to over $6 million.

We need to get much better at recycling and reducing consumption with waste packaging and becoming more a circular economy.

Moreland currently contributes 30,000 tonnes to landfill annually. While 16,000 tonnes was collected from yellow top recycling bins in 2017 in Moreland, an equivalent of 10,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas reduction. A further 10,100 tonnes was collected in garden organics.

One of the issues we have is a very high contamination rate of recycling bins. The average across Moreland is 17 percent, much greater than the Melbourne average of 6 percent. This can cause problems with the sorting, sale and processing of recycling.

Recycling and waste dumped in landfill also causes greenhouse gas emissions and costs Council and ratepayers. If we can reduce the amount of waste, more local government rates can be spent on the roads, footpaths and services that really matter to residents.

Moreland Council meeting on 8 August 2018 considered a draft Litter and Waste Strategy for release for public consultation.

“The Strategy addresses key action areas to take Council forward in waste management. The emergence of new technologies and changes to state and national waste policy and legislation make it critical for the Strategy to be flexible and capable of adapting to future opportunities. The Strategy includes Council’s recently adopted target of zero waste to landfill by 2030. A significant part of the Strategy is the behaviour change required by all parts of the community to be able to achieve the goals within the Strategy. Achieving the goals is not possible by Council acting alone, it must be in partnership with a willing community.” said the Council Officer’s report.

The draft strategy focuses on the following key areas for action to divert waste from landfill and increase resource recovery:

• Trial a kerbside food waste collection via green waste bins to reduce waste to landfill and GHG emissions
• Increase promotion of at-home composting
• Reduce contamination in household recycling bins
• Reduce resources lost to landfill via the household garbage bins
• Provide incentives for the use of cloth nappies to reduce the volume of disposable nappies sent to landfill
• Increase opportunities for residents to divert waste from landfill via pop up recycling drop off points
• Work with traders to improve litter and dumped rubbish hot spots
• Implement behaviour change programs targeting waste avoidance, recycling, and rubbish dumping
• Trial voting bins for cigarette butts and reverse vending machines for beverage containers
• Advocate to government and industry on a range of issues including the introduction of a container deposit scheme, improving packaging design for recyclability, extended product stewardship programs and transitioning towards a circular economy, and
• Continue to eliminate single use plastics from council festivals and events.

Public feedback on this draft Council strategy will be open until 14th September at Moreland Council website

Entry filed under: Moreland Council, news, waste. Tags: litter, Moreland Council, waste.