Yarra Ranges seeking feedback for waste plan

The State Government is introducing changes to people's bins. Picture: ON FILE

Yarra Ranges Council has received more than 7000 survey responses from residents in regards to its waste plan, ahead of planned changes introduced by the State Government.

The State Government has released its recycling Victoria policy, setting targets for reduced waste over the next 10 years.

The targets include adding a food and garden organics service for all households, rather than putting food scraps in the landfill bin, a glass recycling service for all households, separate from a regular recycling bin and changing bin lids to match standardised, state-wide colours for services.

Ahead of the changes which Yarra Ranges Council is looking to introduce next year, a survey was presented to the community about current services and how the new services can be rolled out.

Yarra Ranges Mayor Jim Child said that Council will be using the community’s feedback to shape a Draft Waste Plan.

“Our survey asked how community members would like to see their bin service change and how frequently they’d like the new bins collected,” Cr Child said.

“We heard, overwhelmingly, that community members would prefer glass collection in a wheelie bin, rather than a drop-off point in a central location.”

The Draft Waste Plan will be released for community feedback shortly.

Cr Child said the council expects the rollout of the new bin service to start towards the end of 2023.

“While most people told us that they would prefer a weekly rubbish collection, with a fortnightly FOGO collection, that majority shifted in our webinars, when the food organics component was clearly explained,” he said.

“We’ll use this feedback – which included thoughts on hard waste, difficult-to-recycle items and composting, to create our Draft Waste Plan,

“This plan will be released for feedback in coming months, as a check-in with the community to make sure we’ve got the balance right.”