Media Response |

- City of Ballarat Development and Planning Director Angelique Lush

1. Once recycling goes to Geelong, what happens next? Or is that a question for SKM?

SKM process the materials by physically separating them into the different categories (paper, cardboard, glass etc.) and removing any contamination. They then sell the products to various local and overseas markets.

2. How are things tracking on the $250,000 spent on recycling contamination? Or is it too early to tell?

The $250,000 is what it costs the City of Ballarat annually to deal with the current contamination levels in kerbside bins, not an amount for a campaign to target contamination.

We do audits of recycling bins twice a year, with the last one done in June 2018 and the next one in February this year. These audits are how we will tell if the recycling contamination has improved.

3. When will the innovative, targeted campaigning begin that will be undertaken, particularly off the back of the audits, to ensure we know who we need to educate about what to put in each bin.

We are currently developing a localised program to reduce the 17 per cent contamination in the recycle bins. This is to enhance our existing program which includes letters, recycle guides, social media post/videos and articles in My Ballarat. The key thing is to remind people to keep soft plastics out of the recycling by the way of the “scrunch test”. If it goes back to shape after being scrunched then it can go in your recycling bin.