Knox Council to move to fortnightly rubbish bin collections

Knox Council is moving ahead with its plan to pick up residents' rubbish bins fortnightly, after a recent "kerbside audit". 

Knox Council is pushing ahead with its plan to pick up residents' rubbish bins fortnightly, after a recent "kerbside audit". 

The council will move to a new system from mid-2023, picking up a food and garden waste bin weekly and rubbish bins fortnightly, in a bid to save food scraps from going to landfill.

The council said as part of its most recent annual kerbside audit, contractor EnviroCom collected 125 rubbish bins across Knox that were randomly selected on each day of collection over a week. 

It said 43 per cent of materials by weight were found to be food scraps, which was consistent with previous years’ findings of 40-45 per cent of food scraps found in rubbish bins since the audits started in 2015.

The council said from April 2023, residents will be able to add food scraps to their green bin, and from July 2023, the food and garden bin will be picked up weekly and the general rubbish bin will be picked up fortnightly.

The council is investigating what special arrangements will be available to residents of households that produce more waste such as larger households, households with children in nappies and people requiring incontinence aids or with medical needs that produce more waste.

"When we roll out the new service we will change the bin lids on all existing garden bins (recycling the old red lids). This will have important information about what can and can’t go in the bin and will conform to the standard colour of bright green for food and garden bin services Australia wide," the council said.

The controversial move to switch to fortnightly rubbish bin collections has been slammed by residents and Cr Nicole Seymour has started her own survey to ask the community’s thoughts on the decision.

“There has been a lot of social media commentary this past week where residents have expressed concern at council’s recent decision to change the frequency of general rubbish/ waste collection to fortnightly from next year,” Cr Seymour said on her Facebook page.

“A decision that was made without community consultation, instead relying on learnings from other local government areas. A decision that in my opinion goes against council’s own community engagement policy.

“In the absence of my colleagues prioritising your voices, I have developed an online survey.”

More than 1600 residents have already completed the survey, with Cr Seymour to release the final results at the end of the month.

The council has come under fire from angry residents after its decision to scrap weekly rubbish bin collections, despite fears nappies and medical waste will cause a stink.

“Unbelievable, as a 6 person household, we are struggling already,” Ildi Zemberi said on Knox Leader’s Facebook page.

“That is crazy. I see a lot of bins almost over flowing on a Wednesday night.

“Bins will be stinky, nappies, dog poo, medical waste,” Tracy Butterfield said.

Ray Phillips said: “Does that mean a reduction in rates?” while Jacqui Stone questioned the lack of community consultation.

“Sorry, I missed the survey on this! Ffs. Seriously.”

Emma Cronin said: “I am a resident and have not been consulted on this. The bins are too small for a fortnight for families.”

But others supported the move.

“My sister’s council has had fortnightly rubbish collection for more than ten years, it works really well. And they’re a family of 6,” Lisa Paulin said.

“We are lucky to half fill our small wheelie bin in a week. Compost, recycling including soft plastics and there wouldn’t be a worry. Maybe this move by council will shift human overconsumption, change our throw away society and force proper recycling,” Nic Green said.

In a poll of more than 600 readers, 91 per cent opposed the move to fortnightly collections.

Knox’s changes follow a similar move from Monash Council, which will introduce fortnightly rubbish bin collections next month, in a move one resident described as “a brain fart”.

Knox Council says residents will be able to dispose of food in their garden waste bins from mid next year and maximise the amount of waste that can be composted.

It said food makes up 43 per cent of what’s in rubbish bins.

Ratepayers Victoria vice-president Dean Hurlston said the community understood the need to reduce landfill and many councils were grappling with the same issue.

“What is poor here is the decision has been made and council will simply now impose this on the community,” Mr Hurlston said.

“Council has failed to educate over the last 12 months to prepare residents for the change they knew was always coming.

“Now they will have to deal (as Monash has) with a very angry bunch of residents who feel dictated to.”

Speaking at the Knox Council meeting on Monday night, Cr Meagan Baker said residents had been asking her why they hadn’t been consulted about the change in rubbish bin collection frequency.

She moved a motion that council stick with a resolution from its August 2021 meeting that the council introduce a fortnightly FOGO (food organics and garden organics) service in 2023 and continue weekly rubbish bin collections, but the motion was lost.

Cr Nicole Seymour supported Cr Baker’s push for more community consultation on the plan and said the council’s priorities were roads, rates and rubbish.

“Rubbish is something that our community has high expectations of us and any changes we need to bring the community on a journey and we need to be delivering service outcomes that meet community expectations,” Cr Seymour said.

“When you want to influence behavioural change you need to bring people along and you need to do it slowly, steadily and with open communication – you don’t just ram it down them and say ‘This is what you’re going to have, bad luck’.”

But other councillors supported the change.

Cr Marcia Timmers-Leitch said a weekly FOGO service diverts more waste from landfill and reduces the risk of contamination as the “stinky” compostable waste that everyone was used to having collected from their property each week, would still be collected.

She said the council did need to “bring the community along” with the change, and understand the needs of young families who used nappies and people with significant medical needs.

Cr Jude Dwight said the council had already consulted extensively on its climate response plan and residents were asking for real action.

“And FOGO is that, we’ve had people begging for this for years,” she said.

Knox Mayor Susan Laukens said there was clear evidence that weekly collection of the food and garden bin together with fortnightly collection of the rubbish bin was most successful in diverting food waste from going to landfill.

“We know this will be a big change for our community and we will offer additional support and service options where needed,” she said.

“We will consult the community to understand what exemptions and arrangements can be put in place for households that have specific needs like children in nappies and people using incontinence aids, larger households or households with high volumes of medical waste.”

Cr Laukens said the council made its decision based on the opportunity to reduce harmful greenhouse gases produced by food rotting in landfill and the clear evidence that this collection frequency was most successful in diverting food waste from landfill.

She said consultation would focus on what challenges residents foresee in making a change to bin collection services and frequency, and what exemptions or additional services might be needed for households with special circumstances.

The state government released new waste management and recycling reforms in 2020, which are compulsory for all Victorian councils.