Residents on the road to Recycle Right

Published on 20 August 2018

More residents are correctly sorting their recycling waste thanks to Maribyrnong City Council’s Recycle Right campaign.

The campaign which ran from November 2017 to March 2018, inspected 10,000 bins across the city, and found that 58.3% of recycling bins had at least one item that can’t be recycled – with the most common offender being soft plastics.

The issue of placing non-recyclable items in a recycling bin means large loads of recycling waste is tainted. Placing recyclable items in a normal waste bin will add to landfill.

To tackle this, Council followed up with 1000 households that showed the highest levels of contamination. The households were visited, and provided with educational resources in a face-to-face visit to enable them to better sort their recyclable waste.

Much to Council’s delight, a follow up inspection of houses that received information on recycling, found that 553 households now had less than 10% contamination, with 317 of those households showing no contamination at all. This is a significant change compared to the start of the campaign where this cohort showed more than 70% contamination.

Local resident, Sarah, who participated in the Recycle Right campaign said it provided an opportunity for her household to educate themselves on what can and can’t be recycled.

“We've been working hard to recycle correctly, and it’s great to know we're getting it right,” she said.

The Recycle Right campaign will run again later this year from September 2018 to March 2019.

Top tips for recycling right:

• Keep recycling out of plastic bags: if you put your recycling in plastic bags it can end up in landfill because it can’t be sorted and recycled.
• Please make sure items are empty: remove leftover solid food scraps
• Check for recycling in every room: bathroom, laundry, kitchen, lounge and study.

A word from the Mayor, Cr Cuc Lam:

‘The Recycle Right campaign is a great initiative that keeps residents accountable, and is a valuable reminder that we all play a role in upholding Maribyrnong City Council’s commitment to reduce recycling contamination by 50% and increasing waste diversion to 46%.

We hope to see similar, if not better results when this campaign is run again later in the year.’

Maribyrnong News

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