Council’s latest decision regarding waste collection changes has spurred much controversy on social media. Council has decided that the green bin collection will now become weekly instead of fortnightly and the red bin collection will change over to fortnightly. Food waste is now meant to go into the green bin.
This decision is supposedly based on a trial run of 1000 residences in the McKinnon/Ormond area. On the basis of this trial we now have the decision to forge ahead with this changeover.
Our understanding is that by diverting food waste into green bin collections this will reduce the amount of garbage going to landfill and also have environmental benefit in terms of reducing carbon emissions from this food waste – as claimed in the letter dated 3rd May that was sent out to households.
We are not advocating in favour or against this decision. What we are fully cognisant of is the lack of process that has informed this decision making. When council decides something that will have an immediate and huge impact on residents’ lives, then they had better make sure that all the data is accurate, that it has majority community support, and is economically viable.
To the best of our knowledge, no formal consultation was undertaken by council for the trial and certainly none for this final decision. In other words, what is the real level of community support for this change? Nor do we know the cost of the green tidies that council has produced for distribution. We also don’t know how much the garbage ‘police’ surveillance is likely to cost. Or the cost of providing extra bins for those families that deal with nappies.
All we have to go on to determine whether the trial is in fact working and worthy of being implemented across the entire municipality is to be found in the small print of the current Quarterly Report. Here is the screen dump (page 31) from this report.
If the objective is to increase the amount of food scraps being diverted into the green bin, then the above results clearly show that this isn’t happening. So, what does this really mean? That residents aren’t embracing the change? If so, then what guarantee does council have that this will improve – unless of course they introduce a fine system to ‘encourage’ compliance! Nor do we accept the pathetic reasoning that seeks to blame COVID for the lack of improvement. Surely people still continued eating and creating food scraps regardless of whether they were in COVID lockdown or not. We could even argue that with lockdown more people would be cooking and eating at home rather than going out, so the production of food scraps should have increased! We also find it hard to buy the argument about seasons. Does this mean that winter produces more food scraps than summer? Where is the evidence for any of this?
Summing up we do not appear to have necessary pre-requisite data, or community support, that justifies the decision that has been made. Instead we are forging ahead with a project that cannot guarantee ‘success’, and has the potential to impact dramatically on countless residents. Perhaps we should simply say that this is another example of pre-determined decision making by council that ignores process and thorough testing, monitoring, and analyses.
Glen Eira Debates 
May 19, 2021 at 4:41 PM
I would bet that most people woudn’t bother reading this propaganda they call the quarterly report. That’s what council relies on. If they really wanted to they could publish a regular and decent summary every month that was in plain language so residents would know exactly what’s going on. But their aim I think is to camouflage everything and make everything sound fantastic. Then they have the cheek to claim they are “transparent”.
May 19, 2021 at 5:42 PM
We have to move to start, so here is the beginning of that move. I approve of this start, its worth a go.
Personally I don’t think most GE residents are up to it, basically most people just could care less about anything much above their own laziness and convenience, and residence dumping their personal waste in the most convenient place possible had become our municipal sport reaching plague proportions long before COVID 19 came along.
The stats do have holes in them and they need to be plugged to understand our waste and people problems.
Will more general rubbish, end up in the green or yellow bins in greater quantity than it already does, and go to landfill from these recycling depots. This is back-door-way to landfill, and for all waste to be truly accounted for, this will need to be tracked in tonnage.
I get the feeling residents will just start dumping more rubbish on nature strips than they already do, we in GE have extremely high levels of roadside trash, some laying around for months. Dumped rubbish (not the booked collections as I believe these are already accounted) need to be account for in tonnes.
I think what council needs to understand whether waste is in the bins correctly or incorrectly, or booked or illegally dumped council is the one who eventually removes it, and we pay.
Diverting waste from landfill is a worthwhile thing, reducing waste at the consumer level is another worthwhile thing. At the moment we seem trapped between the two.
May 19, 2021 at 5:52 PM
Thanks for your comment. To reiterate: we are not commenting on the decision per se – whether it is good or bad. We are simply pointing out the lack of proper process in the long road to this decision.
May 19, 2021 at 8:14 PM
Point taken, on environmental issues like recycling and waste, you could throw a train-load of money into consultation and educating residents on which bin is which and still fail, because of the basic laziness and apathy of most residents.
Doing the right thing for the overall good of the community/environment isn’t currency in GE. For a hell of a lot of people in my area wheeling your own bin out is just to much trouble, so they just carry out their rubbish in one bag and drop it into the first bin they come across.
“Give me convenience or give me death” is the motto for most in GE.
May 23, 2021 at 11:16 AM
Attention residents of Glen Eira
Do not reality get in the way of another good story from Glen Eira City Council
May 27, 2021 at 10:52 AM
Using a mere 1000 residents as a guide is suggesting a straw poll is sufficient to make major changes. From what I have observed in my area most people use small red bins but this change will result in many reverting back to large red bins. People need to understand that ALL of the recycle depots have now gone broke; everything now goes to landfill. Since China rejected our recycle material councils have tried to put blame on residents and not their incompetence by being reliant on one recycle plant. I wish councils would unite and establish a centralized recycle plant that had a sound business plan rather than opting to pass the buck back to residents….its your job do it!! See Brisbane City council its the one and only council in Qld so it stops the buck passing.
July 30, 2021 at 9:53 AM
The decision is beyond dumb. I’m going to write to the council to complain. They must think my rubbish bin is mostly potato peel or coriander stems 🤪.
My rubbish bin is often full on a weekly basis, and trust me, I only put in rubbish that can’t be re-used or put in recycling/green bin.
In fact, last night I put out my almost overflowing recycling bin on the curb – and since I had stuff that wouldn’t fit in, went on the hunt to place it in someone else’s curbside yellow bin – I checked 15 and all were overflowing!
So anyone can see where this is going… People will start getting rid of rubbish in their green bins, and recycling of course will end up in the red bin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
Either think about resizing the bins (bigger yellow bin) or change the schedule back!