Oliver Lees
Macedon Ranges council will receive $68,000 toward educating residents on how best to dispose of their waste.
The funding boost is part of a Sustainability Victoria initiative which will see a total of $1.1 million awarded to 16 recipients across the state.
Macedon Ranges council acting director of assets and operations Simon Finlay said the grant will contribute to council’s Let’s Get Sorted waste education campaign.
“The campaign will continue to promote good recycling and waste sorting habits in the home and encourage waste minimisation and bring materials in line with the state-wide campaign,” he said.
“Macedon Ranges Shire has seen fantastic uptake of the FOGO [Food Organics Garden Organics] service within the community, with extremely low contamination rates, below one per cent.
“The funding and campaign will continue to support the FOGO service which was rolled out to all remaining properties across the shire in July 2021.”
According to data provided by council, 11,715 tonnes of organic waste has been diverted from landfill and turned into nutrient-rich compost between February 2020 and June 2021.
“This would provide enough electricity to power 4,148 houses for one year,” Mr Finlay said.
A further 2735 tonnes of glass from landfill has been recovered from the shire and used in Victorian infrastructure projects.
Mr Finlay said with the four bin service rolled out shire-wide there is no plan to introduce any new services with the funding.
