The Greater Geelong Council is investing in major waste facility
upgrades as it prepares to introduce kerbside bin reforms that will help keep
more household waste out of landfill.
The Council’s
proposed 2024-25 Budget includes significant funding to enable
the introduction of Food Organics Garden Organics (FOGO) and glass kerbside
collection services in the coming years.
The City collects approximately 43,000 tonnes of garden waste in green kerbside
bins each year and
recycles the materials into compost at its own facilities.
The compost is then used on local parks, farms and gardens.
The proposed budget includes $16.7 million for upgrades at the City’s existing
waste facilities to enable food and garden waste to be processed together in
large quantities. This will enable a move to a FOGO service by 2027-28.
The proposed budget also sets aside $8.6 million in 2026-27 for the purchase
and rollout of purple-lid kerbside bins for glass, enabling the introduction of
a glass only collection service.
Under legislation introduced by the state government, all Victorian councils
are required to introduce FOGO by 2030 and glass only collection by 2027.
This will result in a standard four-bin service statewide featuring red
(household rubbish), yellow (mixed recyclables), lime green (FOGO) and purple
(glass) bins.
In addition, an allocation of $300,000 in the Council’s 2024-25 budget will
enable planning to continue for a new Resource Recovery Centre and Waste
Recycling Hub in the region, with $4 million earmarked in both 2025-26 and
2026-27 to build the facility.
The existing
Geelong Resource Recovery Centre in North Geelong is also slated
to receive a major upgrade to improve safety at the site.
Mayor Trent Sullivan:
This four-year budget is an important milestone in
the Council’s journey towards achieving its circular economy goals.
Waste management is one of the fundamental roles of councils and our strategy
is to treat waste as a resource by collecting and re-using as much of it as we
can.
By doing this, we’ll have far less waste ending up in landfill.
The decision to invest so heavily in waste facilities upgrades in this budget
will pave the way for some major changes in the way we collect and manage
waste, which will result in better outcomes for the environment.
The Council’s draft budget is
available for community feedback until 5pm on
Wednesday 22 May.