Adelaide councils' 3-bin kerbside waste pickup system boosts rates of resource recovery
Topped by a food caddy, the three bins – red for general waste, green for organic waste and yellow for recyclables – used by Adelaide metropolitan councils have boosted resource recovery rates in the waste stream.
The three-bin (general waste, recycling, green organics) kerbside waste collection, gradually adopted by South Australian local government councils since 2003-4, has significantly boosted the state’s rate of resource recovery.
But the best resources recovery rate was achieved by a three-bin system plus households supplied with food caddies that can collect excess food in compostable bags in the kitchen and later placed in the green organics bin. This was the way to cut the 30% food-waste contents of general-waste bins still being found by audits.
Audits also found that 13% of recycling bins and 2% of green organics bins were being contaminated by general waste. Overcoming contamination remains the education challenge to furthering South Australia’s resources recovery rate of about 80%.
In 2012-13, 36 councils across the South Australia offered a three-bin system to their households, compared with 16 in 2003-04.
Adelaide City Council introduced a three-bin system in 2008 with a major increase in recycling and 42% of waste diverted from landfill in 2009/10. Despite this progress, the council had to reset its target of diverting 60% of waste by 2012 back to 2020. It saw increasing those taking part in green organics service to 25% as a way to do that.
EastWaste, handing collections for Adelaide eastern suburbs councils, has invested in GPS tracking technology for its trucks as an example of other incremental changes to improve the system. EastWaste has been selling its recyclable waste material to a Melbourne handler.
South Australian councils faced a new challenge to the disposal of their recyclable material with the China National Sword policy, from 2018, placing strict contamination limits on imports of recyclable materials. South Australia was better placed to meet this challenge as a leader in recycling. Its af recovered materials exported is relatively small in comparison with the amount reprocessed locally, with 87% of all recovered material reported reprocessed within South Australia, 8% processed interstate and 5% exported overseas.
