Garbage & Environmental Services

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Garbage & Recycling Services

Maintaining a clean environment for living, working and playing in the City of Port Phillip is achieved with a full range of waste and recycling services. As well as residential services, the council regularly collects rubbish from parks, gardens, beaches and shopping centres to ensure a high level of enjoyment of these public places by our residents and visitors.

In the last decade, council has introduced over eighty environmental initiatives to improve living for our community by achieving energy savings, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building a sustainable environment.  The council's new recycling service make it easy for Port Phillip residents and businesses to contribute to improving our environment.

Household battery recycling

• Australians use approximately 10,000 tonnes of household batteries every year.
• About 70% of these end up in landfill, which can severely contaminate soil and groundwater.
  
  

We’ve set-up a household battery recycle service at our ASSIST counters in the Port Melbourne, South Melbourne and St Kilda Town Halls.  You can help us protect the environment by dropping off your used household batteries in the storage tubes at these locactions. 

We can recycle all domestic alkaline batteries (single use and rechargeable) including; Nickel Cadmium (NiCd), Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) and Lithium Ion (Li-Ion).  Working with Chemsal, an Australian resource recovery specialist we are able to recycle most components of the batteries including: zinc, carbon, nickel, cadmium and lithium all of which are valuable resources.

Please visit the Transfer Station web page  for more information on how you can save resources and help reduce your impact on the environment.

Waste Services survey results

Port Phillip recently undertook a public consultation/feedback process to gather information and ideas on it's waste services from residents.  The process consisted of provision of an online and hardcopy survey/feedback form being made available to all residents for a period of 6 weeks.  With nearly 150 responses the survey yielded fantastic feedback in regard to port Phillip’s current services and some terrific ideas for the future management of waste in the city. Some of the key results from the survey are listed below.  

• Over 74% of respondents rated the household collection service as good or excellent with 20% stating it needs improvement.
• 91% of respondents stated that their understanding of what can and cannot be recycled was good or excellent.
• 79% of respondents supported a ban and/ or reduction scheme on disposable plastic bags      

When asked what would help households recycle more responses focuses upon:
o Improving the services to multiple unit dwellings
o Increased levels of educational material provided (what can and cannot be recycled))
o Increased range of services to recycle different materials i.e. E-waste, light bulbs, green waste etc.
o Lobbying for reduced amounts of  packaging on products – also clearer labelling of the materials      

When asked for suggestions to improve waste management in the city respondents focused upon: o Returning to a twice-yearly, set-date collection of Hard/Green waste
o Increasing and improving public place recycling
o The need for more regular chemical/ hazardous waste collections
o The need for more educational material/programs distributed to combat anti-social littering behaviour and poor recycling practices.    

However, by far and a way the most common response recorded in the survey to improve recycling rates and waste services was for improvements to the Council’s green waste services.   The most commonly listed request from residents was the implementation of a regular green waste collection service – be it a kerbside collection or local skip-based drop off service.  The topic of green waste collection and diversion from landfill is not only of very high importance not only to residents, but it will play a crucial role in the future of waste management state-wide.  As such the issue of food and green organic waste will be a major focus for Council over the next 4 years. All of the responses have been highly valued and will be taken into account when adapting operational procedures or waste management planning.