Purple bin backlash brews in the ’burbs as Victorian councils rubbish extra costs

City of Manningham Mayor Deirdre Diamante argued the glass-only bins scheme was poor value for money. The council has already collected 6.4 million containers through the container deposit scheme, and Diamante said the popular scheme should be expanded instead of giving each household a fourth bin.

“You’ve got set-up costs to Manningham of almost $2½ million for glass recycling, and ongoing costs of about $200,000 a year, and how many glass bottles would you probably then put in this bin? For me, it would be a sauce bottle, maybe an olive jar and a wine bottle per week.”

A motion unanimously approved by Cardinia councillors at the shire’s most recent meeting this month argued that the increase in truck movements and household bins carried “potential negative impacts on amenity and logistics”.

“We want to let the Victorian government know that we are not satisfied that this scheme is affordable,” councillor Trudi Paton said.

“We are not satisfied that their scheme is practical, either for additional bins to be placed on the kerbside or for the service to be used as intended.”

The Allan government, which is so far the only state government to introduce glass-only kerbside recycling, has defended the scheme, arguing glass collected through mixed recycling too often breaks and contaminates other material, meaning more recyclables end up in landfill.

The mayor of one council that is among the early adopters of purple bins also lauded the scheme’s success.

Merri-bek introduced glass-only recycling in July 2023, and Mayor Helen Davidson said the council had collected 2462 tonnes of glass in the scheme’s first 12 months. Costs to the average ratepayer had risen by $17 a year to help pay for the scheme, Davidson said, which was lower than the opposing councils’ modelling found.

Merri-bek is one of just two inner-urban councils, along with the City of Yarra, that have already introduced kerbside purple bins. Inner-city Port Phillip has opted for a drop-off service. Davidson said some high-density housing areas could not accommodate bins for individual households, but a solution had been found.

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“Prior to launching the glass-only collection service, council identified 23 locations in Merri-bek that would have physical limitations for a household to store a fourth bin,” she said. “To solve this, we introduced communal glass drop-off points for about 2000 residents.”

John Englart, a Fawkner resident and the convenor of Climate Action Merri-bek, backed the four-bin system, arguing it reduces the amount of waste entering landfill.

“I’ve seen it as positive because a lot of the glass was [previously] going into the recycling bin, and it’s much harder to recycle when it’s mixed in with all the paper, cardboard, tins, plastics,” he said.

Englart lives in a townhouse and said he was aware that some townhouse residents struggle to find space for four bins, but had overcome this by keeping all four bins to the smaller size.

The Victorian government’s policy to require councils to provide glass-only recycling was introduced in 2020. Queensland, NSW and South Australia have opted to expand their container deposit schemes to include glass wine and spirits bottles.

Jeff Angel, director of the NSW-based Total Environment Centre, said Victoria was on course to be the “one man out”.

“Given the way things are moving, you’ll entrench an unnecessary piece of infrastructure,” he said.

Angel backed the councils’ argument that incorporating wine and spirit bottles into the container deposit scheme was a better solution than a fourth bin.

“Firstly, we have a much better collection and sorting system with container refunds. Secondly, that scheme is much better patronised than a separate glass bin ever will be,” he said.

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