The amount of waste generated by Australians is growing every year, leading to significant capacity issues in landfills and recycling facilities, and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. Reducing the amount of waste we produce and increasing recycling and resource recovery are essential to ensuring environmental sustainability.
Find out about waste reduction efforts within the Shire, as well as other waste reduction information, below. For ideas on how to reduce your own waste generation visit Sustainability Victoria.
Council has developed a trial Circular Economy Marketplace tool for local businesses to share and trade commercial, industrial and agricultural materials.
To access this resource, you will need to create an account on Engage Alpine by selecting the blue 'Log In/Join' button at the top right of this page. Once you have an Engage Alpine account, please email the Sustainability Team at sustainability@alpineshire.vic.gov.au to request access to the tool.
What is the Circular Economy?
The circular use of materials, where products and materials are kept in use and their value is reintegrated into our economy (i.e. in a circular economy), contrasts the dominant linear economy, where raw materials are extracted and transformed into products that consumers use until discarding them as waste.
A circular economy ensures products and materials are kept in circulation through processes such as maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling, and composting. By recognising that sending waste to landfill is a lost opportunity to recover valuable materials and energy, a circular economy reduces the amount of waste going to landfill and preserves natural resources, resulting in significant financial and emissions savings.
The Victorian Government’s Recycling Victoria: A New Economy seeks to reduce waste going to landfill, improve the recoverability of recycled streams and ultimately transform our economy from linear to circular.
Read more about the circular economy here.
The Waste Hierarchy
The waste hierarchy is a set of priorities for the efficient use of resources, and outlines the ways we can reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfill. Following the waste hierarchy by prioritising waste management options from the most preferable (prevention) to the least preferable (disposal) allows us to use resources more efficiently and sustainably, and as a result create less waste.
1. Waste Prevention
At the top of the hierarchy are the waste prevention options of Avoid and Reduce; these options use the least resources, produce the smallest amount of waste, and therefore have the smallest impact on our environment. Waste prevention focuses on avoiding waste creation wherever possible by avoiding uneccesary consumption and using fewer materials through actions such as:
- choosing items with the least packaging
- avoiding disposable goods and single-use materials
- buying products that are re-usable, repairable, refillable, recycled or recyclable
- using or composting leftover food rather than sending it to landfill
2. Resource Recovery
The secondary priority is resource recovery, which prioritises options that optimise resource recovery and contribute to a circular economy; Reuse, Repair, Recycle, Recover.
Re-use (without further processing) and recycling (processing waste materials to make other products) keep products and materials in use and decrease the need for new materials and waste absorption, therefore benefiting the environment.
Where recycling isn’t feasible the hierarchy encourages waste recovery, which involves extracting value or energy from waste materials through processes such as composting.
3. Waste Disposal
Finally, and inevitably, there is the management of residual waste – items that cannot be safely recycled and must be treated (where required) and disposed of.
Alpine Shire households can now divert even more waste from landfill thanks to the introduction of HalveWaste's pilot Soft Plastic Program. The program enables households to recycle their soft plastic packaging through their household recycling bins.
Households in the Alpine Shire that receive kerbside waste collection can register to participate on the Halve Waste website or in-person at Council's Customer Service Centre in Bright, local libraries and Visitor Information Centres.
After registering, orange collection bags are available to collect from Council Customer Service points. These bags can be filled with 'scrunchable' soft plastics, secured when full, and added to yellow kerbside recycling bins for collection.
For more information about the soft plastic stewardship scheme, visit the Australian Food & Grocery Council website.
In July 2023, Council introduced a weekly kerbside collection of food and garden organics for properties located within urban kerbside collection areas. Kitchen scraps, food waste and garden cuttings are transported to a commercial composting facility, where they are transformed into compost.
By separating your organic waste from your red-lidded general waste, you are preventing it from ending up in landfill, where it results in significant greenhouse gas emissions.
Between July 2023 and June 2024, data collected from kerbside bins across Alpine Shire showed that 2,441 tonnes of general waste was diverted from red-lidded bins as a direct result of individuals and households using the FOGO service.
With the introduction of weekly FOGO collection, red-lidded general rubbish bins and yellow-lidded recycling bins are now collected fortnightly. Read more about Council's waste and recycling services here.
What Can Go In Your FOGO Bin?
Yes - Fruit and vegetable scraps (including citrus, onions and garlic), raw and cooked food scraps, meat, bones, seafood, egg shells, dairy products, coffee grounds, tea leaves, leftovers and out-of-date food, oils and fats (absorb in paper towel first), shredded and scrunched paper, tissues and paper towel, cardboard pizza boxes, feathers, human and animal hair, kitty litter, Council-provided compostable liners, leaves, garden prunings, lawn clippings, weeds, real Christmas tree, branches 30cm or smaller
No - Plastic, including 'biodegradable' or non-certified compostable plastics or bags, coffee pods, treated timber, clothing, nappies, wet wipes, recyclable materials, hazardous waste, ash, gravel or dirt, large branches or logs, takeaway coffee cups (even compostable ones
Read our flyer for more information on using Council's FOGO service. Alternatively, visit HalveWaste for a range of waste-related resources, including a comprehensive list of what can go in your FOGO bin.
The Victorian Government has officially launched its Container Deposit Scheme (CDS) across the state in November 2023.
CDS Victoria will now reward Victorians with a 10 cent refund for every eligible can, carton and bottle they return to an applicable refund location.
The Victorian Government, in partnership with VISY, have collaborated with local businesses to launch three 'Over the Counter' refund locations in the Alpine Shire:
- Crispy's Hardware – Bright
- Myrtleford Cycle Centre – Myrtleford
- Settlers Tavern – Tawonga South
You can also choose to donate your refund to a local charity or community group that is registered as a donation partner with the CDS. More information about the program can be found here.
Single-use plastics make up a significant quantity of the litter seen in our environment, and are difficult and costly to clean up. They generate a large amount of waste that is difficult to recycle.
Regulations have been made by the Victorian State Government to ban certain single-use plastics from sale or supply in Victoria from 1 February 2023. This ban includes:
- drinking straws
- cutlery (including knives, forks, spoons, chopsticks, sporks, splades, food picks)
- plates
- drink-stirrers and sticks
- expanded polystyrene food service items and drink containers.
- cotton bud sticks.
You can find out more about what is included in the ban and what is exempt here.
