Macedon Ranges Council has released results from an audit on kerbside bins to determine how accurately households across the shire are disposing their waste.
Four tonnes of rubbish from 375 randomly selected houses tested contamination levels in their recycling, organic and general waste bins.
Findings from the report published on January 9 to the council’s website confirmed 31.5 per cent of the volume from general waste bins were polluted with wrong items, mainly recyclable goods and organic waste.
Comparatively, 13.8 per cent of recycling bins were contaminated with mostly landfill items, while four per cent of the mixed organic bins were contaminated primarily by non-compostable packaging.
The audit concluded, “Macedon Ranges residents perform well in using green and yellow-lidded bins, but have room for improvement in sorting waste for red-lidded [general waste] bins”.
Mayor Dom Bonanno said current success was due to the implementation of the four-bin system as community efforts had helped over 70,000 tonnes of waste be diverted from landfill thus far.
“The war on waste is an ongoing, collaborative effort, and while the audit shows there is still room for improvement, I am extremely proud of the efforts of council and residents over the past five years in particular, which has already made a huge impact,” Bonanno said.
As part of the Macedon Ranges 2021-2026 Waste and Resource Recovery Management Strategy plan, the audit was conducted in an effort “to show upward and downward trends in behaviour change” so that council goals to reduce bin contamination could be “measured and reviewed”. According to this document, the indicative cost for the audit to be completed was $20,000-$30,000.
The strategy plan also reviewed the council’s own ethical behaviours and noted it was selling single-use plastics such as water bottles and coffee cups in the Kyneton Town Hall, aquatic and fitness centres. In its recommendations, it stated, “council could remove these problematic items and lead by example”, which it has since done with the Single-use Plastic Policy adopted in May 2023, prohibiting the procurement, use, distribution or sale of single-use plastic items in all council-owned buildings.
