Victorian Local Government Annual Survey 2010-2011
ISSN 1836-991X
Contact Details
Nick Chrisant
Sustainability Victoria
(03) 8626 8700
Published by Sustainability Victoria
Level 28 Urban Workshop
50 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
Australia.
August 2013
While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure that the contents of this publication are factually correct, Sustainability Victoria gives no warranty regarding its accuracy, completeness, currency or suitability for any particular purpose and, to the extent permitted by law, does not accept any liability for loss or damages incurred as a result of reliance placed upon the content of this publication. This publication is provided on the basis that all persons accessing it undertake responsibility for assessing the relevance and accuracy of its content.
The Victorian Local Government Annual Survey 2010-2011 should be attributed to Sustainability Victoria.
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Contents
Executive summary
Total waste generation
Kerbside collection services
Environmental benefits from kerbside recycling
Litter and street sweeping services
Services to commerce and industry
Hard waste collections
Landfill and transfer station operations
Broad trends over eleven years
Appendix A Methodology
Appendix B Glossary
Appendix C Victorian local governments
Appendix D Waste generation and diversion rate from kerbside collection services
Appendix E Time series data kerbside services
Appendix F Population figures
Victorian Local Government Annual Survey 2010-20111
Figures
Figure 1 Waste generation*, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 2 Diversion rate, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 3 Composition of waste collected through kerbside services, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 4 Tonnes collected for the three main kerbside services, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 5 Waste generation by metro / non-metro local governments, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 6 Composition of waste generation by metro / non-metro local governments,
Victoria 2010-11
Figure 7 Diversion rate by waste management group, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 8 Kerbside service cost by service provision, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 9 Garbage household yield across local governments, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 10 Garbage household yield, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 11 Garbage yield per person, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 12 Garbage cost per tonne, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 13 Garbage yield by collection system, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 14 Recyclables household yield across local governments, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 15 Recyclables household yield, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 16 Recyclables yield per person, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 17 Recyclables tonnes collected, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 18 Recyclables cost per household across local governments, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 19 Recyclables cost per tonne across local governments, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 20 Cost per tonne, recyclables and garbage kerbside service, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 21 Kerbside recyclables by type of items collected, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 22 Recyclables yields by collection system, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 23 Green organics tonnes collected, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 24 Green organics yield per person, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 25 Litter and street sweeping services annual service cost, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 26 Street sweeping services annual service cost, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 27 Number of commercial and industrial premises serviced by kerbside collections, by service provision category, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 28 Hard waste household yield across local governments, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 29 Number of licensed / unlicensed landfills and transfer stations, Victoria 2000-01
to 2010-11
Figure 30 Resource recovery by type of items recovered at drop-off facilities, Victoria 2010-11
Figure 31 Population trend, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 32 Tonnes collected for the three main kerbside services, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Figure 33 Per capita waste generation for the three main kerbside services, Victoria 2000-01
to 2010-11
Victorian Local Government Annual Survey 2010-20111
Tables
Table 1 Waste management group by composition of waste stream collected, Victoria 2010-11
Table 2 Diversion rate by waste management group, including drop-off material, Victoria 2010-11
Table 3 Kerbside services summary, Victoria 2010-11
Table 4 Kerbside services by proportion of households receiving service, Victoria 2010-11
Table 5 Kerbside services provided by number of local governments, Victoria 2010-11
Table 6 Garbage services by service provision category, Victoria 2009-10 to 2010-11
Table 7 Garbage collection system by service provision category, Victoria 2010-11
Table 8 Garbage average yields and costs by collection system, Victoria 2010-11
Table 9 Recyclable services by service provision category, Victoria 2009-10 to 2010-11
Table 10 Kerbside recyclables contamination rate, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
Table 11 Recyclables average yields, costs and contamination rates by collection system,
Victoria 2010-11
Table 12 Correlation between garbage and a 240 L recyclables collection system and average household diversion rate, Victoria 2010-11
Table 13 Garbage and recyclables collection system by number of local governments, Victoria 2010-11
Table 14 Green organics by service provision category, Victoria 2009-10 to 2010-11
Table 15 Green organics collection by frequency of service, Victoria 2010-11
Table 16 Green organics average costs and yields by collection system, Victoria 2010-11
Table 17 Green organics average costs and yields for on-call services, Victoria 2010-11
Table 18 Green organics average costs and yields for optional user-pays services,
Victoria 2010-11
Table 19 Green organics bin systems, Victoria 2010-11
Table 20 Litter services, Victoria 2009-10 to 2010-11
Table 21 Litter clean-up services, Victoria 2009-10 to 2010-11
Table 22 Street sweeping annual service cost, Victoria 2009-10 to 2010-11
Table 23 Number of commercial and industrial premises serviced by kerbside collections,
by service provision category, Victoria 2010-11
Table 24 Hard waste services by service provision category, Victoria 2010-11
Table 25 Hard waste collection frequency by service provision category, Victoria 2010-11
Table 26 Number of local government-owned landfills and transfer stations by service provision category, Victoria 2010-11
Table 27 Main items recovered by source of recovery, Victoria 2010-11
Table 28 Victorian local governments
Table 29 Diversion rate by local governments, Victoria 2010-11
Table 30 Recyclables household yield (kg) by local government, Victoria 2010-11
Table 31 Garbage household yield (kg) by local government, Victoria 2010-11
Victorian Local Government Annual Survey 2010-20111
Executive summary
Objectives
The Victorian Local Government Annual Survey assesses the state’s delivery of kerbside waste management and recycling services by local governments to Victoria’s households in the 2010-2011 financial year.
This annual report card – now in its eleventh year – provides a regular measure of local government waste disposal efficiency and sustainability, monitors the state’s progress against directions set in ‘Getting full value – Victoria’s waste and resource recovery policy’, and plays a vital role in the formulation of future directions for waste management services in Victoria.
Methodology
The survey was despatched in September 2011 and completed by 79 local governments on Sustainability Victoria’s website. Sustainability Victoria gratefully acknowledges the cooperation of Victoria’s local governments and regional waste management groups in achieving a 100% response rate.
Sustainability Victoria has sought to verify information provided in data collection returns through rigorous follow-up with individual local governments. However, Sustainability Victoria is not in a position to validate underlying data in the report. Findings in this report are therefore subject to the accuracy of data provided by individual local governments.
Findings
The key findings for data collected in 2010-11 are as follows:
1. Total waste generation
More than two million tonnes of kerbside waste (garbage, recyclables and green organics) was collected in 2010-11, up by 5.7% (or 114,153 tonnes) from the previous financial year. Nearly two-thirds of the increase (64%) was directly attributed to the increased recovery of green organics (an additional 72,554 tonnes collected).
The cost to local governments of kerbside collection exceeded $317 million, an increase of more than $47 million (17.4%) from the previous year.
The statewide average diversion rate for recyclables and green organics – i.e. the amount recycled (and therefore diverted from landfill) – has increased from 44% in 2009-10 to 45% in 2010-11. Since 2000-01, the diversion rate has increased steadily every year and improved by 19 percentage points. The largest increase was recorded between 2003-04 and 2004-05 when most local governments adopted the best-practice bin systems for recyclables.
Garbage accounted for 52% of total waste, one percentage point less than in 2009-10. The proportion of garbage collected has steadily decreased since 2000-01 when it represented 70% of total kerbside waste collected.
2. Kerbside collection services
Analysis of the efficiency of kerbside collection of garbage, recyclables and green organics yielded the following conclusions about cost, yield, access, container types and service frequency for each.
Garbage
Nearly 1.1 million tonnes of garbage was collected in 2010-11 – or 197 kg for every person[1]Pin Victoria
Households generated on average 488 kg annually – up 13 kg from 2009-10.
Local government service costs per household averaged $86.29 – compared to $66.82 in 2009-10.
As in previous years, local governments using smaller garbage bins generated less waste and had greater diversion rates for recycling than those using larger bins.
An 80 L garbage bin generated on average 38% less waste than a 240 L bin.
Recyclables
Recyclables exceeded 622,000 tonnes – up 1.5% (or 9,082 tonnes) from the previous year.
Continuing the trend of the past two years, the service cost for recycling collection ($114.43 per tonne) is less expensive and achieves greater economy than the alternative and more expensive option of garbage collection and disposal into landfill ($176.79 per tonne).
Household collections averaged 279 kg – or 112 kg of recyclables generated by every person in Victoria.
77 of the 79 local governments (97%) use a best-practice commingled bin system for recyclables instead of a crate for containers and a tied bundle for paper, the predominant system prior to 2002-03.
Recyclables service costs averaged $31.94 per household per year – $1.91 less than in 2009-10.
The average contamination rate increased from 7.5% to 8.3% in 2010-11.
By weight, paper / cardboard accounted for most (61.5%) of recycled material collected, while miscellaneous containers (glass containers, steel and aluminium cans) accounted for 30%, and plastic containers 8.5% (excluding green waste).
Green organics
Of the 79 local governments, 46 provided 56 different green organics collection services. Of these, 21 were regular council services (i.e. weekly or fortnightly), while 21 local governments also provided a regular optional user-pays fortnightly green organics collection.
390,390 tonnes of green organics were collected from kerbside services – up 72,554 tonnes (or 22.8%) from 2009-10.
On average, 367 kg of green organics was collected per household (nearly 71 kg per person).
The cost of providing a green organics service to households increased by 20% from $42.14 in
2009-10 to $50.60 in 2010-11.
A fortnightly collection was the most common service (68%), yielding an annual average of 354 kg per household for a regular council service and 386 kg for a user-pays system.
3. Environmental benefits from kerbside recycling
Applying the findings of The Independent Assessment of Kerbside Recycling in Australia[2] and the Life Cycle Assessment for Paper and Packaging Waste Management Scenarios in Victoria[3], the environmental savings from kerbside recycling of containers, paper and cardboard for 2010-11 are equivalent to:
- saving 4,758 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water (11,895 megalitres of water)
- taking 60,519 cars off the road for a year (363,117 tonnes of greenhouse gases)
The environmental savings from kerbside recycling of green organics for the year are equivalent to:
- saving 72 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water (180 megalitres of water)
- taking 14,443 cars off the road (86,656 tonnes of greenhouse gases)
4. Litter and street sweeping services
The total cost of litter and street sweeping maintenance for local governments was over $83 million – or $15.03 for every person in Victoria. Of this:
Maintenance of litter bins, traps and litter clean up (such as illegally dumped rubbish) cost more than $28 million, or 34% of the total.
Street sweeping services cost a little more than $55 million a year, of which metropolitan local governments accounted for 76%.
32,100 tonnes of roadside litter and illegally dumped rubbish cost local government nearly $10.5 million annually to collect.
5. Services to commerce and industry
As part of their kerbside collection services to Victorian households, local governments also provided the following to non-residential properties:
69,850 commercial and industrial properties received a regular kerbside garbage collection service
79,725 commercial and industrial properties received a recycling collection service.
6. Hard waste collections
42 of the 79 Victorian local governments provided a hard waste collection service.
Of the approximately 78,000 tonnes collected, 71,000 tonnes were disposed to landfill, representing a 9% diversion rate.
On average, 46 kg of hard waste was collected per household, costing an average of $10.06 per household.
7. Landfill and transfer station operations
275 resource recovery and waste transfer stations operate in Victoria.
Local government-owned and / or operated 84 landfills (39 licensed and 45 unlicensed) in 2010-11.
25,829 tonnes of packaging material (glass containers, aluminium cans, steel cans, plastic containers and paper) and 174,953 tonnes of green organics were recovered from drop-off facilities / transfer stations[4].
Material collected from drop-off facilities / transfer stations represented 16.5% of all material recovered from both kerbside and drop-off facilities. Green organics represented the largest proportion of all items collected (46.6%), followed by paper (32.5%).
8. Conclusion: Broad trends over eleven years
The challenge to make better use of resources and reduce landfill has seen local government services change since 2000-01. All 79 local governments now provide a kerbside garbage and recycling collection service, with most using an efficient combination of bin systems. A total of 97% of Victorian households have access to kerbside garbage collection services and 96% to recycling collection. Forty-six local governments now also offer some form of green organics collection.
The efficiencies now being delivered through mature kerbside recycling systems in Victoria are evident over eleven years of the Local Government Annual Survey. In particular, for every person in Victoria, less garbage is generated and more recyclables and green organics are collected.
Since 2000-01:
- The Victorian population has steadily increased by 15.2% from 4.8 million to 5.5 million. Although total waste generation (in tonnes) has also increased by 35.2% over the same period, the increase is due not only to the effects of population growth but also to the expansion of collection services to more households and the introduction of a third bin system for green organics.
- The amount of garbage collected (as distinct from recyclables and green organics) has decreased by 2.6%. Recyclables have increased by nearly 85% and green organics have increased by almost 294% indicating that households are better educated and better informed about recycling and have the appropriate supporting infrastructure to recover more materials for recycling.
- For every person in Victoria, the amount of garbage generated has decreased 15.5% from a high of 233 kg in 2000-01 to 197 kg in 2010-11; recyclables collected have increased 60% from 70 kg to 112 kg and green organics have increased by nearly 238% from 21 kg to 71 kg.
Please Note:
This publication supersedes all previous reports.
Victorian Local Government Annual Survey 2010-20111
Total waste generation
The focus of this section is the generation of waste by Victorian households.
Victorian household consumption patterns and household waste generation are closely linked to each other. Waste generation is a clear measure of the state’s progress towards the sustainable use of resources and the directions set in the ‘Getting full value – Victoria’s waste and resource recovery policy’.
The Victorian Local Government Annual Survey measures waste collected through kerbside services when analysing household waste generation. It is important to note that waste recovered and removed by private contractors is not included in this survey.
The following sections outline the key findings.
Total waste generated
Victorians generated more than two million tonnes of solid waste through garbage, recyclables and green organic kerbside collection services in 2010-11. This represents an average of 380 kg for every person[5] in Victoria. The amount of total waste generated increased by 5.7% or 114,154 tonnes compared to 2009-10, and has increased by a little more than 35% since 2000-01 (see Figure 1).
Although total waste generation has increased since 2009-10, the amount of green organics collected for reprocessing through kerbside services has also increased by nearly 23%, while recyclables has remained relatively steady with only a small increase of 1.5%.
Consistent with the increase in total waste generation, the total number of premises serviced through kerbside collections has also increased for all three kerbside services, ranging from 0.3% for garbage and 2.9% for recyclables. The 30 metropolitan local governments represent 73% of the total waste generation in Victoria, which is proportional to its population size.
Figure 1 Waste generation*, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11
*Waste generation includes garbage, recyclables and green organics from kerbside
The state average diversion rate (incorporating recyclables and green organics) has risen from 26% in 2000-01 to 45% in 2010-11 and is one percentage point higher than in 2009-10. The diversion rate for recyclables only, has risen from 21% to 33% over the same period. The diversion rate for both scenarios is illustrated in Figure 2.
For the past four years Sustainability Victoria has sought data from local governments about the amounts of municipal domestic waste material collected from drop-off facilities such as transfer stations and / or resource recovery facilities. Only materials relating to household waste typically collected through kerbside services, such as glass bottles, aluminium and steel cans, plastic containers, paper and green organics, are included in the data tabulated from drop-off facilities. Figure 2 demonstrates the impact of including these drop-off figures in the diversion rate. The state diversion rate increases by five percentage points from 45% to 50% when drop-off figures are included.
Figure 2 Diversion rate, Victoria 2000-01 to 2010-11