Ballarat bin system change up coming in 2025

The recommendation passed at Wednesday night's council meeting included changing landfill waste collection to fortnightly, adding a food and organics bin to be collected weekly, keeping recycling collection fortnightly, and introducing a new glass bin, which would be collected monthly.

While the changes won't roll out until early 2025, councillors had pushed for more flexibility in the planned changes - specifically for the weekly landfill waste collection to continue and for the food organics and garden organics (FOGO) collection to be fortnightly.

Concerns were raised over how people will cope with drastic changes to rubbish bin collection.

Cr Hudson, after the decision, told The Courier "demonstrated evidence" would be needed when applying for a second landfill bin, with a charge of $120 annually but the challenge needed to be taken on.

"We need to look holistically - this is about a legacy we leave for future generations and at the moment, that 24,000 tonne of waste is going to our current landfill," he said.

"We can do a whole lot better."

READ MORE: 'Desperate' to combat landfill, council's changing your rubbish collection

Deputy mayor Amy Johnson said the survey had a lot of feedback from single households but families would struggle.

"The number of people that we have engaged with is still a drop in the ocean compared to their population within the city of Ballarat," she said at the council meeting on Wednesday night.

"I know from experience over the last 11 years on council, the people that are most likely to participate in community consultation are people are already quite engaged - so perhaps they're already very good at avoiding single use items, using their recycling bins, minimising their waste.

"Perhaps they have options for food and organics within their households rather than them needing to go into their waste bin and that certainly won't be the case for all survey respondents."

Cr Johnson went on to say a lot of people aren't aware of what goes on within council.

"I think we can clearly say people aren't aware, or very few people are aware of this meeting tonight otherwise, we would have had an enormous number of submissions our phones would have been ringing off the hook and they would have paid a lot of messages and emails about this," she said.

Cr Mark Harris noted the survey stated 60 per cent of people wanted weekly waste collection.

The Victorian Government announced a four-bin system roll out in 2022, with local governments needing to decide the finer details, as well as footing the bill.

"We are implementing a state government policy; we had to move down this path because of state government policy direction," Cr Hudson said.

Cr Hudson said landfill was also a multi-million expense for ratepayers but the four-bin system roll out will be the most "the most affordable, appropriate cost", which was what the community requested.

The new bin system will be an extra $16 per residence.

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At this stage, the council spends $28,000 per day on waste collection - for this to be taken to a multi-million dollar landfill site which is rapidly filling and not an infinite solution.

To close one cell at the landfill site cost more than $2 million and to open a new cell costs twice that.

"The more capacity we build into every cell, the more capacity we build into the life at Smythesdale, long term we will save ratepayers money because if we continue down the road and we just continue to fill up the landfill at Smythesdale, it's unlikely we would get a license from EPA to open up a landfill site anywhere close to Ballarat," Cr Hudson said.

The changes will need "significant work in the back end" before they are implemented into Ballarat households, Cr Hudson said.

Council will need an operator for the food waste collection, and ensure it can process all the items received.

Council will need to purchase bin parts for the green bins and purchase purple bins when they roll out - which will be for glass disposal.

The community will get a taste of glass recycling when next month, container deposit collection points in Ballarat open.

READ MORE: Revealed: Where you'll be able to cash in your containers in Ballarat

"It will also be interesting to be able to watch and see how the community responds to the container deposit scheme," Cr Hudson said.

"To see what the uptake will be for people to be able to take some glass items for a 10 cent refund, and how much glass that generates."

At Wednesday night's meeting, councillors were split four-four with one councillor absent, before Cr Hudson cast a deciding vote.

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