Liam McNally
Melton council has elected to trial a Coffee Cup Recycling program to help reduce the number of single use coffee cups being sent to landfill.
At a council meeting on Monday, March 27, council decided it will undertake a 12 month trial of the use of coffee cup-specific recycling bins at six sites around the municipality.
According to a council report, it is estimated that over one billion single use coffee cups, weighing approximately 22,500 tonnes end up in the landfill in Australia each year.
While the coffee cups are made of recyclable materials, due to the component materials they cannot be recycled via kerbside and public place processes, and as such are classified as a contaminant.
However, if collected and processed at specialised recycling facilities, the cups and lids can be converted to make road base or asphalt, reusable coffee cups and lightweight concrete slabs.
For a cost of $13,100 the bins will be placed at Melton Library, Caroline Springs Library, Cobblebank Stadium, Melton Civic Centre, McKenzie Street and Melton Operations Depot during the 2023-24 financial year.
Cr Steve Abboushi commended environment and waste manager Justin Horne for his work on the report.
“…He has come up with a very low cost [program with] significant environmental gains for our municipality, so I’d like to commend Justin Horne for the great work he has done on this and hopefully we reap the benefits in our local community and the environment,” he said.
