The City encourages the four principles of the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council’s R-gang - reduce, reuse, recycle and recover. For further information visit the R-gang website.
- REDUCE is to limit the amount of waste you create in the first place. This includes buying products with less packaging
- REUSE means to use something again that you would normally throw away (eg. Glass jar for food or plastic bags for bin liners)
- RECYCLE means the product goes through a mechanical process to change its form. This is only recommended when reducing and reusing are not possible
- RECOVER is to convert waste into resources (such as electricity, heat, compost and fuel) through thermal and biological means. Resource Recovery occurs after reduce, reuse and recycle have been attempted.
The Civic Centre and Ruth Faulkner Public Library are collection points for recycling of mobile phones (Mobilemuster), light globes and batteries. Printer cartridges can also be brought into the library for recycling. The City’s Environmental Health Section organises various disposal days where residents can bring in asbestos, whitegoods, car batteries, motor oil, plate glass, mattresses/ bed bases and other specified waste at the Operations Centre on designated days.
The City of Belmont community disposes of 16,000 tonnes of waste and over 1300 tonnes of recyclable material every year. Domestic waste accounts for 12,000 tonnes whilst the remainder is collected in blue bulk bins. This equates to a per capita rate of 492 kilograms of waste to landfill/ resident per year.
The City currently recycles waste materials generated by Council operations including street tree prunings, mobile phones, ink cartridges, paper, cardboard, fluorescent lights, batteries, roadbase and scrap metal.