SA Better Practice Guide: Sustainable Kerbside Services
Prepared by Rawtec Pty Ltd for Green Industries SA, in collaboration with the Local Government Association of South Australia and the SA Environment Protection Authority, in consultation with a project advisory group including the City of Holdfast Bay, East Waste and the City of Mount Gambier. Kat Heinrich is the named Rawtec contact. May 2023.
Summary published
South Australia diverted 51% of kerbside material from landfill in 2020–21 and has a 70% target for 2025. Diversion has been rising at 1.2% a year. On that trajectory the target is not reachable, and this guide exists because of that arithmetic.
The material that closes the gap is already in the landfill bin. Food waste is 28% by weight of what households throw away and garden waste another 5%, but only 11% of food waste is recycled at kerbside statewide.
The Sustainable Kerbside Service is the answer being proposed: weekly FOGO, fortnightly recycling, fortnightly landfill. Counter-intuitively it increases total capacity — 380 litres one week, 480 the next — while moving the frequency to the bin that needs it.
Current diversion against the 2025 target
Of household landfill waste that is food
Of food waste currently recycled at kerbside
Annual GSP gain if all metro councils transitioned
What the evidence says
Default design is the single biggest lever
This is the finding that matters most. At the City of Holdfast Bay, when the service was opt-in, only 25% of households opted in. When the same service was made the default with an opt-out, across four streets and more than 300 households, more than 75% stayed. Same service, same suburb, three times the participation.
It works when it is rolled out properly
Holdfast Bay’s council-wide rollout ran over two months from September to November 2022. Diversion reached nearly 70% in November 2022, up from 59% under the old model, “largely due to increase[d] food waste diversion”. Fewer than a quarter of households opted out.
Residents accept fortnightly landfill once FOGO is weekly
In an October 2021 survey of 196 pilot participants, 98% wanted to continue, 96% were satisfied with weekly FOGO and 94% were satisfied with fortnightly landfill collection. The objection everyone expects did not materialise.
The statewide case is economic, not only environmental
If all metro Adelaide councils transitioned: kerbside diversion to 66%, organics to landfill down from 65.1 to 20.9 kilotonnes, 41.8 kilotonnes of CO2-e avoided a year, $23.9 million added to Gross State Product annually and 63 more jobs. Food waste recovery would rise 61 percentage points to 71%.
Procurement is where the model is won or lost
The guide tells councils to split price into cost per lift and cost per tonne, state an assumed opt-out rate in the tender — it uses 30% as the worked example — and require contractors to nominate how their rates change at other opt-out rates. Also: in-truck cameras, RFID readers, bin audits, contamination KPIs and a right to transition mid-contract.
Pilot properly or do not pilot
Budget a grace period, and expect to need it
Two to four weeks where incorrectly presented bins are still collected. During Holdfast Bay’s, 30 to 40% of landfill bins were presented on the FOGO and recycling week. That is what the grace period is for.
Start a year out
Business case at least 12 months before rollout, elected member sign-off at 10 to 12 months, kerbside services procurement at 12 to 18 months, communications launch one month out, starter kits two to three weeks out. Avoid summer and holiday periods entirely.
The five toolkits
Tasks, responsibilities and timelines for each step, so a council is not building the project plan from scratch.
Estimates the costs and benefits of transitioning, and carries indicative costings for the communications component specifically.
The communications material from the council that did it first, reproduced for reuse rather than described.
For responding to community and stakeholder queries — the questions councils will get, with answers already drafted.
GISA’s consistent statewide branding, available at no cost, so every council is not designing its own bin iconography.
The guide is explicit that the service “is most likely to suit metropolitan councils and large regional centres with access to cost-effective organics collection and processing”, and it includes a separate section on alternative models for regional and remote councils. It also warns the service alone may not reach the target: councils “are expected to achieve a step change in diversion. However, further householder engagement/initiatives may be needed”. Whether the change earns Australian Carbon Credit Units was unresolved at the time of writing and must be determined case by case. The Environment Protection (Waste to Resources) Policy 2010 was under review.
Related work
Other Holdfast Bay work and related guidance.
The full guide includes the nine-step roadmap with lead times, the stakeholder engagement and procurement tables, the pilot design table and all five toolkits.
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