It is stinking hot and humid in Newport today.
I mean that literally because food and garden waste bins in the city of Hobson’s Bay are being collected fortnightly instead of weekly. And so wide open, post-rubbish-collection bins with scrapings of rotting food in them are lying all over the place.
Photo of two large rubbish bins with their lids open standing on the side of a residential street. One bin has a red lid, the other has a green lid.
Over the last couple of years the Hobsons Bay City Council trained us to put all our food waste into our green bins via these kitchen caddies – without compostable big bags, which still aren’t allowed. Those green bins were then collected weekly.
Photo of a kitchen food waste caddy with printed instructions on the lid that tell you what is and isn’t permitted.
Now, at the height of summer, they’ve change the green bin pick-up frequency from weekly to fortnightly.
They knew this was going to be an issue so they launched a permitted compostable bag trial that we signed up for back in November last year. But they won’t send us those trial bags till February.
So now every fortnight our streets stink of rotten food. Fun times.
Photo of three rubbish bins standing and lying haphazardly on the side of a residential street on a bright sunny day. All the bins have their lids open, and one bin is on its side. At the bottom of the photo is a dog on a red leash being walked by the bins.