WEEKLY general rubbish collections could become fortnightly in the City of Stirling to meet State waste reduction targets.
The State Government wants all Perth and Peel councils to move to a three-bin Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) system by 2025, where food scraps and garden organics will be separated from other waste and reused to create compost.
City residents have been using the three-bin system since 2015 but the green-lid bin is only for garden organics like weeds and grass cuttings.
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READ NOWA report presented at last night’s council meeting said a FOGO collection schedule would see the green-lid organics bin collected weekly, while the general waste red-lid bin and yellow-lid recycling bin would have fortnightly collections.
The report said this would likely elicit concerns from residents about “odour control” and capacity.
About 60,000 green-lid bins are used by existing homes so the City would need to provide an additional 30,000 bins.
It also recommended supplying kitchen caddies so people could collect food scraps in the kitchen.
According to the report, changing to the FOGO system would increase the City’s percentage of waste diverted from landfill by 4 per cent to 60 per cent but cost about $4.3 million to implement and $3.7 million annually to deliver.
Council voted for a further report be provided after the Mindarie Regional Council finished its processing trial, which is expected to start next quarter.
Waste and fleet manager Rick Bryant said the City wanted FOGO processing and appropriate processed compost off-take arrangements in place before implementing the system to ensure it was sustainable.
“The City is also cognisant of existing contractual obligations, and the cost impact of implementing food organic recovery,” he said.
“In planning and implementing food organics recovery, extensive waste education and marketing to support behaviour change and the resources to support it would need to be considered.”
Local Government Minister David Templeman said the State Government was keen to work with local governments and address their concerns about the new waste strategy.
“We are one of the highest creators of waste in the world and it’s not good enough,” Mr Templeman said.
“We want to work with local governments and get the best possible outcomes.
“There’s an appetite in the community to embrace this.”