Frequently Asked Questions

The City undertook extensive stakeholder engagement in the development of its current Strategic Community Plan 2017–2027. Waste management was regularly mentioned by the community and, as a result, the Strategic Community Plan contains a strategy to promote and implement sustainable waste management practices.

The City’s four-yearly Corporate Business Plan, which outlines in detail the projects, services, and actions required to deliver on the priorities identified in the Strategic Community Plan, includes an action of developing a waste management plan.

The draft WRMP was developed in partnership with the key stakeholders including the City’s Recycling Centre and waste contractors.

At this time, the City will not be implementing the three-bin system, which is a State Government program called Better Bins that provides funds to local governments to support higher waste recovery. It includes general waste, co-mingled recycling and organic/green waste. 

After assessing the Better Bins option, the position of the City and its Rivers Regional Council (RRC) partners (Mandurah, Armadale, Gosnells, Murray and Serpentine Jarrahdale) is that it was not the preferred method for waste management for the following key reasons:

• Despite financial support from the State Government, it presents a significant cost to ratepayers.
• It provides increased capacity to generate more household waste at a time when households are being encouraged to reduce household waste.
• The lack of available space for some households to store an additional bin on their properties, particularly for those living in apartments.

The State Government’s Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy 2030 (WA Waste Strategy 2030) outlines that local governments should move to a three-bin system by 2025. It is not anticipated that the City will transition to this system before then, but will continue to work with the State Government and other stakeholders, including the RRC, to plan a way forward.

The City has committed to delivering its Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) stream (general household waste including organic waste) to a Waste to Energy (WtE) facility to divert the waste from landfill. WtE facilities use thermal processes to break down general waste to a fraction of its original size. This generates baseload renewable energy (such as steam), which can then be used to generate electricity. 

In partnership with the Rivers Regional Council and Phoenix Energy, the City is part of a project to create Australia’s first WtE facility to be located in Kwinana. This WtE facility is an important step towards the City’s goal of zero waste, and will significantly reduce its reliance on landfill disposal.

The City committed to the WtE facility as a result of the previous Western Australian State Waste Strategy 2012, which supported ‘actions that divert waste from landfill and recover[s] it as a resource’.

It is anticipated that by utilising the WtE facility, the City’s waste going to landfill will be reduced by 95%. Construction of the WtE facility has already commenced and is scheduled to be operational by the end of 2021.

The Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy 2030 (WA Waste Strategy 2030) is the State Government’s current waste strategy, which provides a strategic framework for managing waste and guides the State’s Waste Authority in delivering programs and development of advice to government.

You can read more about the WA Waste Strategy 2030 on the Waste Authority website.

The City’s draft WRMP aligns with the targets of the Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy 2030 (WA Waste Strategy 2030) in all areas except for the three-bin system, where the City has already committed to Waste to Energy (WtE) as the alternative solution to landfill. 

Read more about the City’s commitment to WtE.

The Rivers Regional Council (RRC) was created under the Local Government Act 1995 and complies with most requirements of any Local Government. Its members are the Cities of South Perth, Gosnells, Mandurah, Armadale and the Shires of Murray and Serpentine Jarrahdale. Each Member Council elects two Councillors to be Regional Councillors.

The main objective of the RRC is to identify issues associated with waste management, makes decisions relating to long-term waste management strategy and lobby on behalf of the seven member councils.

The feedback period has closed and all feedback is being analysed and the revised Plan will be presented to Council for adoption in August 2019.

All feedback that is received will be reviewed by the City staff and will be used to help inform any modifications to the draft WRMP before it goes to Council for adoption in August 2019.

The City’s current contractor takes recycling to a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), where the waste is sorted into the various commodities, e.g. various plastics, cardboard, metals, etc.

The contractor then seeks suitable recycling markets for these. As of May 2019, all City of South Perth plastics are being recycled via suitable markets and the City has not had to limit the amount of recyclables accepted.

At the moment, 85% of the kerbside recycling stream is recycled, with the remaining percentage consisting of contamination such as soft plastics, textiles and organic material. This non-recyclable component is currently sent to landfill, but will be diverted for energy recovery once the Waste to Energy facility is operational.

The State Government is committed to the implementation of a container deposit scheme in Western Australia, which allows consumers to take empty beverage containers covered by the scheme to a refund point to receive a refund of 10 cents. The scheme is designed to help address the issue of litter and encourage a culture of recycling and has already been successfully rolled out in the Eastern States. The scheme is intended to complement kerbside recycling and existing waste services, and will encourage people to collect and recycle beverage containers consumed away from home.

In 2019/20, the City will investigate what role it can take to support the Container Deposit Scheme.

Yes, the City will review this program in 2019-2020. See Principle 2: Maximise Benefits in the draft WRMP for more detail.

A number of local governments are reviewing the options around verge-side collections, due to the following factors:

• Limited access to a suitable verge for some residents, particularly those in multi-unit developments, strata properties, etc.
• Unsightliness of the streetscape during collection time
• Fixed times for collection through the year that provide little flexibility
• Potential damage to verges and street trees