As leaders in waste management and resource recovery, the City of Unley, is looking to lift the bar. With your help, we can do even better than we are now.

We, both Council and our community, can be proud of the leadership we have shown the rest of the State in waste management and resource recovery. Over the years we have led the way with strategies to improve waste management and resource recovery.

We have done this by implementing direct changes to our own strategy. This includes such things as our recent issue of green kitchen caddies free to all residents. It also includes such strategies as the Take the Pledge program.

The Take the Pledge program has seen a strong take-up rate by ratepayers. Additionally, of those who have taken the pledge, we have seen a significant shift in rubbish being sent to land-fill.

We have also lobbied the State Government to open up the restrictions placed on us under the Local Government Act. This includes my old hobby horse, weekly green bin collections, and fortnightly blue (red) bin collections. As we speak, we await the results of the weekly green bin trial in Goodwood.

As well as we have done, however, there is more we can do. Accordingly, we have developed a draft Waste Management & Resource Recovery 2021-25 Plan.  A plan we are seeking your input into.

The Draft Plan aims to build on our recent successes and can be found here. It has focused on seven key elements as follows:

….

…

• Residential kerbside collection
• New proposals for Multi-Unit Developments
• Better efficiencies for hard waste collection
• Review of Council’s internal waste management
• Review of services for a new contract
• Innovation and use of technology
• Continued community education and engagement

With your help, we can implement a next-generation plan before entering into any new contracts for waste disposal. On that score, we are due to enter into a new contract this year.

Please check our your say page here, and submit your thoughts by the 10th of May.