Council commits to weekly garbage collection

Thank you to everyone who shared their feedback on our 4-bin waste service.

On Monday 8 December 2025, Council made some important decisions about our ongoing kerbside bin services. After our community consultation here is what was decided. Council adopted Option 1, this means:

🔴 Garbage bin: Your garbage bin will stay as a weekly collection, just as it is now.

🟢 FOGO bin: Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) bin service will be rolled out to all households that have council bin services from July 2027. This will be collected fortnightly.

🟡 Mixed recycling bin: Mixed recycling collection will stay fortnightly.

🟣 Glass recycling bin: Council has decided to delay making a decision on any glass recycling service model until April 2026.

We will continue to advocate to the Victorian Government to oppose and reconsider the requirement for a separate glass bin. We know this is an important issue for many residents, and we will keep raising your concerns.

Your bins are changing.

We asked how we can make 4-bins work best for you.

Whitehorse households will move to a 4-bin waste and recycling service by 1 July 2027 as required by the Victorian Government to meet the Proposed Household Waste and Recycling Service Standards (2024).

The 4 bins will include:

• Food organics and garden organics (FOGO) service (lime-green lid)
• Mixed Recycling service (yellow-lid)
  
• Glass Recycling service (purple-lid)
  
• Garbage service (red-lid)

As part of this consultation, we asked for feedback on two 4-bin service options. To help understand what the proposed changes could mean for you, please read the Conversation Starter Kit.

To allow enough time for our community and Council to prepare, the change to a 4-bin service will not begin until early 2027.

The 2 different service options:

See page 4 of the Conversation Starter Kit for a full comparison of the 2 service options.

We understand that different households have different waste needs, so we asked to hear what service option would work best for you. In particular, how we could support households that have children in nappies, people living with disability or people with medical needs with fortnightly garbage (Service Option 2).

We understand a well-designed 4-bin waste service could help achieve our:

• Waste Management Strategy (2018-2028) target of 80% waste to landfill diversion rate by 2028
• Climate Response Strategy (2023-2030) target to aspire for net zero community emissions by 2040.
• Integrated Council Plan (2025-2029) to achieve an environmentally sustainable and climate resilient City and a Council that responsibly and sustainably manages waste.

We also asked for feedback on our Waste Management Strategy (Rubbish to Resource) 2018 – 2028 draft 5-Year Action Plan (2024-2028). The draft was shaped by the feedback we heard from last year’s consultation regarding your top waste priorities and concerns.