Council to introduce glass kerbside collection service in 2020
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Published on 24 October 2019
At the 23 October Ordinary Council Meeting, Council endorsed plans to introduce a separate, glass-only bin collection service.
The 140 litre bins, which will be collected every four weeks and have purple lids, will be delivered to approximately 20,000 households in February 2020.
Council will contact residents about the new arrangements directly.
This decision comes after Council was one of 33 Victorian councils affected by the closure of recycling processor SKM Recycling earlier this year.
A new recycling processor has been identified but only if glass is removed from the household recycling bins (yellow lid). Shards and small pieces of glass can become embedded in paper and cardboard in recycling bins and contaminates the other recyclables.
Glass-only skip bins have been installed in public places across the shire to assist residents in removing glass from their recycling bins.
The glass collected in the public place skip bins, and the glass-only kerbside bins when the new service commences, is processed by the Alex Fraser Group and reused in construction materials.
Until the new service begins next year, residents are asked to continue to keep glass out of their recycling bins and to use the public place glass-only skip bins.
As a last resort, glass can be placed in general rubbish bins (red lid).
Macedon Ranges Shire Council Mayor, Councillor Janet Pearce said that the community’s efforts to remove glass from recycling bins to date had been terrific.
“Thank you to everyone for their continued efforts to do the right thing.”
“Council is committed to reducing waste and providing sustainable solutions for our community, and the introduction of the glass-only kerbside bins, along with the food organics garden organics service (FOGO) next year is an important step in the right direction,” Cr Pearce said.
Council will also explore options to reuse glass locally as part of a feasibility study that will be considered by Council in April 2020.