2017-03-07 Services & Organisation Committee Agenda

SERVICES & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                     7 MARCH 2017


4.    Summary of Rolfe Perry and Associates Pty Ltd findings

The following is a summary of the findings by the consultant:

•     Fruit and vegetable waste comprised 4% by weight of the green waste collected.
•     The average bin weight was 14.5kg (600g being fruit a vegetable waste)
•     Contamination was found to be minor (0.5%) comprising soiled nappy, animal faeces, fruit
      fly larvae and animal bones).
•     Dry conditions at the time may have skewed the volume of garden waste in the bins.
•     During the trial a few residents advised the consultant that a weekly service would have
      been better as the two week period was too long in summer.

The resource recovery contractor (Cleanaway) advised that the green waste delivered at the
resource recovery facility during the trial did not present any unusual nuisance. It was difficult to
detect the fruit and vegetable waste in the stockpile of green waste disposed by the collection
vehicles.

5.    Customer feedback by phone

A personal feedback session was arranged by the Waste Education Officer who contacted 122
residents in the trial area. 70 of the residents contacted advised they had participated in the trial.
The following information was obtained during the feedback session.

•     92% of participants thought it was important to get food waste out of the general waste, 6%
      said they didn’t know if it was important and 2% said it wasn’t important.
•     25% said that they wrapped their food waste in newspaper, 19% wrapping it sometimes
      and 56% adding food waste directly to the bin.
•     90% of participants said they had no issues during the trial and 10% said that occasionally
      they experienced some problems. The householders that experienced problems did not
      wrap their food waste in newspaper.
•     Over half of the participants said that they would like a 360L recycle or 360L garden bin
      when they are available and 22% said they would possibly like a larger bin. This is a
      substantial number of residents that would like a larger bin.
•     33% of the people said that they did not take part in the trial because they didn’t receive a
      letter. This could be because it was addressed to the resident and not personally
      addressed.
•     Approximately 30% of the participating households with a green bin said that they also
      compost or worm farm their food scraps.

6.    Previous Council Consideration

Not applicable.

7.    Finance & Risk

Overall there was very positive feedback from the public regarding the trial and removing fruit
and vegetable waste from the general waste stream.

The addition of a limited volume of fruit and vegetable waste to the garden waste recycling
service from 1 September 2017 will not incur any additional costs to Council as the volume of this
waste has been measured and found to be quite small in comparison to the volume of garden
waste.

The new collection contractor Cleanaway has agreed to accept the inclusion of the waste without
additional charge to the garden waste collection service.

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