Council
13 May, 2026
'We did go early' says council
Discussed at last month's Yarriambiack Shire Council meeting was the rollout of the glass recycling bins, along with enquiries from mainstream media seeking comments on their value for money, especially given the presence of the Container Deposit Scheme.
Chief executive Tammy Smith said the shire's intentions had been honourable; they had “tried to be proactive initially”, and the promise of state government support had been a major catalyst behind the decision.
“We did go early with the glass recycling bin that was purely on the back that there was government funding available to assist, we did go out early prior to the Container Deposit Scheme, and now we've actually seen the flow-on effect from the Container Deposit Scheme being introduced in the community,” she said.
“The tonnage significantly decreased for glass and if we had our time again, we wouldn't have gone early, and we understand where the current councils that are lobbying against rolling out the glass bin are coming from, because ultimately, for us, we have very limited presentation rates and low tonnage currently being collected.”
She said unfortunately, potential future changes to the CDS were likely to have an even greater negative effect.
“If the CDS continues to expand, as is being proposed, taking wine bottles, etc, then there's going to be less glass being collected in the bins,” Ms Smith said.
Bringing further details, YSC mayor Andrew McLean said the costs of collecting one tonne of glass had “probably certainly doubled, maybe even trebled, since we started our glass collection”, and the shire was conscious of increasing waste collection costs even further.
“We're not introducing FOGO (Food Organics and Garden Organics) as yet,” he said.
“We do need more guidance from the state government on whether we are required to do that at this stage.”