Adelaide’s big bin switch: Councils keen to collect green bins weekly and waste bins fortnightly, cutting costs and reducing landfill

Waste collection could be overhauled with green bins picked up weekly and waste bins every second week. Councils and the government love the idea – what do you think?

Residents across Adelaide are likely to soon have their green bins collected weekly, under council moves backed by the state government.

And councils say if that proves successful, it could lead to legislative change allowing fortnightly pickup of general waste bins.

Councils have conducted trials aimed at diverting food and garden waste from landfill – reducing their costs and helping the environment.

In a state first, 1000 Holdfast Bay households volunteered to have their green-lid bins collected weekly and red-lid bins fortnightly for a year.

Bin audits found the amount of food in their green bins more than doubled, instead of being wrongly placed in general waste bins.

Overall, 84 per cent of waste was diverted from landfill in the $140,000 state-government-funded trial, up from 60 per cent.

Mayor Amanda Wilson said: “We would love to do this across the whole council area in due course. It saves us money on the waste levy.”

FOGO champion Kaleo Selah of Seacliff at home with his green bin.

The state government’s solid waste levy is $146 per tonne in metro Adelaide.

Unley recently completed a six-month trial of weekly green-bin collection and West Torrens is part-way through a 12-month trial, both of similar scale to the Holdfast Bay one, but not involving fortnightly general waste pick-up.

Environment Minister David Speirs said he was “eager to see other councils piloting weekly green bin collections” as there were multiple benefits including cost savings, new jobs in recycling and lower landfill-gas emissions.

“If this was adopted by all 19 councils across metropolitan Adelaide, there’s the potential for them to save up to $15.4m (annually) in landfill costs,” Mr Speirs said.

“The huge win for South Australia would be seeing a valuable resource like food waste and garden organics being converted in compost to improve our soils and grow more food locally.”

Under the state’s existing Waste Environment Protection Policy, the Environment Protection Authority requires general waste collection be offered weekly, though households can opt out.

Wondering what can go in a green bin? This chart explains all.

West Torrens Council said: “It is hoped that community support for weekly organics bin collection may lead to reform of state legislation to allow for more flexibility in kerbside collection services.”

Given the extra cost of sending trucks for weekly green bin collection, councils are likely to demand change so general waste collection can be fortnightly.

Local Government Association president Angela Evans said improving waste management was a “high priority for councils, from both a sustainability perspective and to reduce costs for ratepayers”.

“Increasing diversion of food waste is the biggest opportunity councils have to reduce waste costs,” Ms Evans said.

“SA councils will pay more than $45m through the state government’s solid waste levy this year, and the LGA believes more of this funding should be made available to councils to reduce waste to landfill and support the achievement of waste targets.”

Councils looking to trial different bin collection frequencies and other alternative waste management approaches can apply for government funding through Green Industries SA.

Kaleo Selah of Seacliff took part of the trial and encouraged other residents “to give FOGO a go go”.

“Putting out that red bin less often really makes you rely on the green bin a whole lot more,” he said.

“It really gets you into the habit of going to the green first and leaving the red alone. There would be weeks, weeks, when we don’t put anything in our red.”