MELVILLE, Fremantle and East Fremantle are to join Cockburn in offering residents three rubbish bins.
Last Tuesday Melville councillors voted to undertake a trial of the Food Organic Garden Organic system to residents in Bicton, Willagee, Mt Pleasant, Brentwood and Bull Creek.
The trial is expected to start in October 2017 and if it helps the councils to produce more high-quality compost which they can sell, and reduces waste going to landfill, the system will be rolled out across the three municipalitieds in 2018/19.
The project is a collaboration between all three councils and the Southern Metropolitan Regional Council as part of the regional strategic waste management plan adopted in 2016.
• Melville mayor Russell Aubrey, SMRC chair and Melville councillor Cameron Schuster with East Fremantle mayor Jim O’Neill and his Fremantle counterpart Brad Pettitt.
The changes will take place with residents receiving a new 240-litre lime-green-lid bin for food and garden waste, which will be collected weekly.
They will also be provided with a kitchen caddy and compostable bin liners to help them separate their waste in the kitchen.
The material from this bin will be turned into high-quality compost at the Regional Resource Recovery Centre in Canning Vale.
Compost
Residents will also receive a smaller 140-litre red-lid bin, which will be collected fortnightly which will be for general rubbish items that can’t be either composted or recycled through their household bins.
The two news bins will replace the old dark-green general waste bin.
The yellow lid recycling bin will remain.
The recycling bin will be collected fortnightly under the FOGO system.
Fortnightly recycling should be enough for most households, however during the trial residents who find they don’t have enough room will be able to upgrade to a larger 360-litre bin free of charge.
The three bin system being introduced is different to other systems operating in the metropolitan area such as Cockburn’s.
Currently all councils in the Perth metropolitan area with a three-bin system only allow for garden materials in their green bin, leaving valuable food waste to rot away in landfill sites, producing harmful greenhouse gases.
For more information on the three-bin trial, visit http://www.recycleright.wa.gov.au
