CARDINIA Shire residents can now recycle more, with council introducing recycling of plastic bags and other flexible (soft) plastic packaging into the household recycling bin.
The outer south-eastern council is one of four leading the way in Australia and offers this recycling service through its ‘Bags in a bag’ model.
From February, residents will be able to recycle all flexible plastic in their recycling bin, including checkout bags, cling wrap, bubble wrap and product packaging for items such as bread, pasta, rice, frozen vegetables and even potting mix. Residents will be asked to collect these recyclables into a tied plastic bag and place it in their yellow-lidded kerbside recycling bin for collection.
Council will soon provide further information to residents on what they can recycle and how to do it well.
Mayor Jodie Owen said council was proud to be leading the way on this environmental initiative.
“Each year many tonnes of plastic bags and other flexible plastic packaging go to landfill in Australia and so this initiative will have a big impact on our recycling achievement by transferring this material from our general waste bin to recycling,” she said.
“Cardinia Shire residents are already diligent recyclers and this gives us the ability to do even better – I encourage everyone to give it a go!”
To help get started, all households will be mailed a pack of ten bags that they can use for collecting all their flexible packaging by placing it in their yellow-lidded kerbside recycling bin. After these bags have been used, householders can use any checkout bag to consolidate their bags in a bag.
For more information, visit cardinia.vic.gov.au/recycling.
