In July and August 2024, a contractor will be conducting surveys of Ararat Rural City Council’s residential bin contents presented for collection. The results will assist with further improving local and regional services such as bin systems, programs and education to increase recycling and reduce waste to landfill.
The surveys of randomly selected households will include:
- A visual survey of bins presented, such as volume used and condition of the bins.
- Collection of bin contents in the contractor’s truck on the normal waste collection day.
- Sorting of bin contents at a waste facility into types of recycling accepted now as well as opportunities for the future.
- Disposal or recycling as usual.
If selected, collection will take place from the kerbside on your normal bin collection day. No action is requested from you. Households will not be notified individually as to which households bins will be assessed, to avoid changing residents’ waste segregation and disposal behaviours.
Conditions of the project prohibit reporting of any specific details related to any individual household or personal information. The information collected is analysed and reported in an aggregated form.
If you have any concerns regarding the survey please contact Council.
Over coming months, a contractor will be conducting surveys of Council’s residential bin contents presented for collection. The results will assist with further improving local services such as bin systems, programs and education to increase recycling and reduce waste to landfill.
The surveys of randomly selected households will include:
• A visual survey of bins presented, such as how full it is and condition of the bins.
• Collection of bin contents in a truck on the normal waste collection day.
• Sorting of bin contents at a waste facility into categories for weighing.
• Disposal or recycling as usual.
Council is working with EC Sustainable to conduct the survey. EC Sustainable is a sustainability, waste and resource recovery consultancy operating across the whole of Australia.
EC Sustainable will be completing the waste and recycling bin surveys.
Households will be randomly selected across the municipality. The bin contents from only a few households in a street will be collected as part of the study. The regular collection truck will collect any remaining household bins at the usual collection time.
It is important that we collect data representative of a typical bin collection day. For this reason, individual households whose bin contents will be used as part of this study will not be notified. Council will be taking a representative sample across the municipality.
We cannot tell which properties are involved, and this won’t be reported on. You cannot volunteer to have your bin included.
You don’t do anything differently. Put out your bin as usual for the normal collection day and time, and sort waste into bin as you normally would.
Yes. If you do not want to participate in the survey, please contact Customer Service on (03) 5355 0200 to provide your property address so that we can ensure you are excluded from the survey.
Bins will be collected earlier so they can be included in the survey before the regular waste collection vehicle collects the bins.
Council is completing a research project with EC Sustainable to understand the bin composition. Bin contents from selected households will be collected and sorted for the purpose of this research.
The participating households have not been notified that a different vehicle will come and collect their bin contents to avoid changing resident disposal behaviours.
Council and EC Sustainable collect the information for use in this study only. The information collected will be treated as private and confidential.
There is no tracing back to individual properties. All staff involved have confidentiality agreements and protocols in place.