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“In speaking with members of our community, people are already using their new bins for lawn clippings and other waste from their gardens,” Mayor Ryan Palmer said.

This new service has been implemented to enable Council to meet its waste management requirements and to reduce the amount of organic waste currently collected as general waste.

Community Services Section Manager Tammy Gutsche said the collection service starts this week on the alternate week to the yellow bin pick up.

“Our new garden organics service will redirect the 25% of green waste which currently goes to landfill, to be processed into an environmentally sustainable compost product. This is wonderful for our community and a positive environmental outcome,” Ms Gutsche said.

The cost saving provided by the redirection of waste from landfill enables Council to provide this new garden organics service to the community.

“Council is committed to working with our community to educate people in the most effective use of their new bin.

“Our community is very familiar with the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling waste and this new program presents a great opportunity to remind us what we can do towards a greener future,” Ms Gutsche said.

Port Stephens residents are able to dispose of prunings, lawn and grass clippings, cut flowers, weeds, sticks, twigs, leaves, bark and branches no bigger than 10cm in diameter, in the new bin.

Plastic bags, plastic, bio plastic or compostable bin liners, paper, food scraps of any kind, household items, bricks, rocks or soil, pot plants or any kind of priority weeds, treated timber and building materials are not suitable for the garden organics bin.

The new garden organics bins will be collected fortnightly for residents, commencing this week.

Information is available on Council’s website and residents are encouraged to download the Port Stephens Waste app on Google Play for Android, and on the App Store for Apple, or visit portstephens.nsw.gov.au/garden-organics for more information.