Petition: Reduce Methane by Stopping Garden Waste Going to Landfill
Mainstreaming green bin use now would provide an immediate reduction in greenwaste going to landfill, and a step towards more advanced food waste recycling in the long term.
Waste going to landfill was an issue in the recent Brisbane City Council election. There was a lot of drama about landfill, FOGO, and whether residents would get their bins emptied or not. Nobody talked about garden waste. Regardless of the merits of either side’s arguments, we are back where we started.
We have red-top bins for landfill, yellow-top bins for recycling, and green-top bins for garden waste. While everyone has a landfill bin and a standard or double-sized recycling bin, few have garden waste bins. Many people still think that it’s ok to put garden waste in landfill because it all breaks down.
Promotion of the green-top bins by BCC and councillors has been patchy at best. It’s on their website, if you are sufficiently aware and motivated to go looking for it. They even say that “approximately 26% of the average Brisbane household bin is garden waste, meaning tonnes of garden waste is sent to landfill each year”.
So, our group has submitted the following petition to Brisbane City Council.
Please sign if you are a Brisbane resident, and share.
(The BCC petition system doesn’t allow line breaks or formatting)
Reduce Methane by Stopping Garden Waste Going to Landfill
Residents draw to the attention of Council that while considerable resources have been put into encouraging residents to recycle with yellow-top bins, there has been little promotion of the use of green bins for garden waste. Green waste including grass clippings going into landfill is a considerable source of methane, and a major cost to Council (and by extension to ratepayers). Many residents are unaware of this environmental and financial cost. Despite Council reducing the charge for green waste bins last year, they still require residents to seek out information, request a bin, and pay extra for collection. There has been no campaign to reach beyond the already aware and motivated residents to make using the green bin for green waste as normal as using the yellow bin for recycling. We are aware of Council’s experiment with food waste recycling in some suburbs and the issues with education and compliance. Using a green bin for garden waste is a much easier adaption for residents than food waste recycling. Mainstreaming green bin use now would provide an immediate reduction in greenwaste going to landfill, and a step towards more advanced food waste recycling in the long term.
Your petitioners therefore request that Council considers the immediate roll-out of green bins as a standard service at no additional cost to individual ratepayers and the promotion of the need to reduce green waste in landfill through all Council media channels and by all Councillors. Where appropriate, body corporates could be issued with a suitable quantity of communal green bins, instead of the current requirement for individual residents to order a bin with body corporate permission.
See the petition here. Please sign if you are a Brisbane resident.