Recycling and landfill statement - MMG feature

Published on 29 May 2018

Moira Shire Council, in cooperation with the community, is continuing to lead the way in best practice waste management. State Government policy is clear - Moira Shire will never be able to host a second landfill site and we will have to source other opportunities to remove waste with the costs dictated by other landfills outside the shire.

This has been a big driver on our ongoing efforts, in partnership with business and community, to improve our waste management.

Since Council rolled out the organics kerbside collection service four years ago, more than 5,000 tonnes of waste has been diverted from landfill and turned into compost, with Moira residents being the key drivers in this success.

In fact, half of all kerbside waste has been turned into recycling shire-wide with this service continually exceeding industry best practice standards as well as delivering financial and environmental benefits to the Moira community.

Moira Shire Council was the first municipality in Victoria to adopt a compulsory kerbside organic waste service.

Every month contamination rates in the organic waste collection have tracked at or around 0.5% (well below the best practice target of 1%) and the resulting compost has been used on local parks and gardens with some fantastic results.

Council aims to bring about positive change in the way we view and manage waste; a strategic approach has been developed as described in the Moira Waste Management Plan.

This approach aims to make our waste management practices as environmentally sound and sustainable as possible.

Moira Shire has been impacted by the current recycling situation with processing kerbside recycling costs rising dramatically; it’s still a very volatile market.

Unfortunately many manufacturers still produce packaging materials that cannot be viably recycled.

Much of the soft films used in food packaging has two different plastics bonded together making the waste unrecyclable and will end up in landfill.

Many recyclers within Australia sent inferior product to China and are now facing a point where they will require massive infrastructure upgrades to meet China’s new contamination thresholds or find new markets.

As a result many of the other overseas markets are now flooded with volumes in excess of what they can physically process also driving the prices down.

Despite the shakeup Council remains committed to recycling and will continue to ensure the system remains viable.