Organic waste service fortnightly collection helps family switch to reusable nappies

Thea O'Loughlin has two children in nappies which, without ditching disposables, could've been a problem with reduced landfill pickup.

Ms O'Loughlin said after moving from Albury where an organic waste service had been provided, her waste-conscious family had welcomed the trial.

"When it came to Canberra we were like, 'why did this take so long?'," she said.

The Macquarie household is one of 5000 which now has organic waste collected weekly, with recycling and landfill collected fortnightly, ahead of a planned citywide rollout of organic-waste collection.

While ACT government has fallen short of confirming waste collection would be reduced when the service is rolled out across the ACT, City Services Minister Chris Steel has indicated that would be the case.

Ms O'Loughlin said ACT government had an opportunity to incentivise waste reduction for people who hadn't had an easy transition.

She said Melbourne councils had offered rebates on reusable nappies and councils in Tasmania were trailing disposable nappies that could go in organic waste bins.

"All those sort of things, they're not in place in Canberra yet, but they potentially could be," Ms O'Loughlin said.

A reduced landfill pickup has become fodder for the ACT Liberals, with opposition city services spokeswoman Nicole Lawder calling for the change to be scrapped, ahead of any commitment.

Ms Lawder said while there was broad support for recycling initiatives, Canberrans were frustrated that basic services like weekly rubbish collection had been scrapped.

Ms O'Loughlin said, with eight bins at their house to maximise recycling, she was a prime candidate for an opportunity to further cut down on waste and the change had been welcomed.

"I don't see it as a reduced service because there's a replacement," Ms O'Loughlin said. "In terms of services, it's an exchange."

She said there was an opportunity for ACT government to further reduce landfill by providing a separate soft-plastics pickup or promoting the supermarket soft-plastic collection.

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"I don't know if many people have the knowledge about the soft plastics, or if they have the ability to take a big garbage bag worth of plastic to Woolies or Coles every other week," Ms O'Loughlin said.

"We're the sort of family that already has compost and chickens and we separate out things, but it gives us this warm fuzzy feeling that all this waste is not going to landfill."

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