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In The Chair: Past President Brian Munro Members: 13 Guests: Sarah Lavilles; Guy Retallick; Javian ******************************** Leeton’s New Green Bin Collection - Sarah Levilles and Guy Retallick. Leeton Shire conducted a waste bin audit of the red bins and found that, in these bins, 61% was organic waste; 12% was recyclable material and the remainder was material that should go to landfill. It is important that the material for landfill is minimized because it costs between $500,000 to $900,000 to build the pits and they are running out of room at the site for new pits. It is also becoming an EPA requirement that Councils reduce the waste going to landfill. The Council have decided to introduce a green bin collection (FOGO – food organic, garden organic). This should contain all organic waste. Green bins will be collected weekly and the yellow (recycling bins) and red (landfill bins) collected fortnightly. The bin size is not being reduced but new bins are being issued under the new contract. Each household is also going to be issued with a small bin to collect kitchen scraps and they will also be issued with compostable liners free of charge. There are 180 liners for each household, but they can be replaced for free when they run out. Compostable liners are not the same as biodegradable liners that can be purchased at the supermarket. The biodegradable ones are not suitable for the green bins. The organic waste will be delivered to Worm Tech where it will be turned into compost. The new bins will be issued from 17 to 30 June. The old bins will be collected and recycled but households can retain the old bins for their own use (but these will not be emptied during garbage collection). The new collection service will commence in the first week of July. Below is a summary of the material to go in each bin. At this stage tea bags and pizza boxes should not go into the green bin (although the content of a tea bag is OK). The vote of thanks to Sarah and Guy was made by Bill Aliendi. |
