Garden Organics Vincent and Heatley Trial

Congratulations your area has been selected to participate in the Townsville City Council's Garden Organics trial!

Townsville, like so many other communities through Queensland is facing major challenges with the collection and disposal of waste.

Background:

Council has built the foundations of a sustainable waste management future aligned with the North Queensland Waste and Resource Recovery Strategy 2020-2030. Through this endorsed strategy and in partnership with the Queensland State Government, the Council's vision is to align its future waste operations to allow for a simple transition to food organics and garden organics collection and processing.

Introduction to the Garden Organics (GO) Trial:

This project is proudly supported by the Queensland Government and delivered in partnership with Council will provide an exciting and evolutional trial that will introduce an additional kerbside GO bin and collection service. The goal of the GO trial like any strategy or trial Council conducts especially related to waste management can only be achieved in partnership and participation with the residents.

Why Vincent and Heatley?

The Vincent and Heatley suburb has been identified by the Council's, Food Organics Garden Organics, Project Management team as one of the suburbs that is representative of 'typical Townsvilleans'. Your area including residential property has been selected as you capture three major Townsville community qualities representing, Tough Times, House Proud and a sense of Hard Working.

What this means to you:

As a valuable household trial participant, you will receive a free 240-litre GO bin, to help you begin your GO journey. The beneficial information you provide via the below-requested feedback forms during the trial will help inform Council on the positives and negatives of this trial for a complete trial report provided to the Queensland Government once the trial has been completed.

What's next:

The GO trial will commence in October 2021 and will be operational for 12 months. During the trial, your GO bin will be collected fortnightly. Your general waste bin and recycling bin will be collected as normal. All GO participants will receive a starter pack containing information regarding GO questions and answers.

Council is committed to assisting our community to increase recycling and divert waste from landfills to achieve a 55% household waste recycling target.

The Queensland Government waste levy will increase to $85 a tonne for all waste that goes to our landfill. Previously this levy was subsidised by the State Government, however, this subsidy is highly likely to be reduced or discontinued, resulting in a potential increase of approximately $60 to your rates for the same level of waste service. This alone is one of the reasons why the Council is investigating ways to better manage household waste, reduce carbon emissions and encourage resource recovery.

Please note: Based on positive feedback to date the Townsville Water and Waste Committee has recommended that Council extends the Garden Organic service. This service will continue at no additional charge to the households until 30 June 2023.

Garden Organics Trial Feedback/Comments: April through to June 2023:

Throughout the Garden Organics Trial, we have communicated with our important trial households to find out how this trial works and provide the participant with an opportunity to share information. We are now nearing the final stages of the trial and once again we would like to provide all participants with the opportunity to let us know how the trial went overall. Please refer to the Forum tab below and provide your comments and valuable ongoing feedback that will run until Friday, 30 June 2023.

Council advises that your new Garden Organics bin may not fully accommodate your complete household collection of green waste however, there are excellent local Green Waste Collection businesses that would be delighted to take your extra green waste on a fortnightly or monthly basis.

We invite you to be part of our journey!