News and updates

Victorians have returned a staggering 750 million containers since the launch of CDS Vic on 1 November 2023.

That’s $75 million back into the pockets of Victorians including through donations to charity and community groups.

CDS Vic is an important part of building Victoria’s circular economy.

Its benefits include a reduction in litter and new economic opportunities – particularly for many socially disadvantaged groups, community clubs and charities as well as generating hundreds of new jobs.

Eligible containers can be returned at refund collection points across Victoria. The scheme is helping to create clean streams of high-value materials for recycling.

Find out more about how the scheme works at www.vic.gov.au/cds-vic.

Consultation on the draft Strategic Procurement Framework is open on the Engage Victoria website from 12 Aug - 20 Sept 2024.

A key function of Recycling Victoria is to support best practice procurement management by councils, Alpine Resorts Victoria and service providers for waste, recycling, and resource recovery services.

Throughout 2023, Recycling Victoria worked with stakeholders to gather feedback that has informed the development of a draft Strategic Procurement Framework.

This framework defines how we intend to deliver this legislative function, the potential support that we may provide, and how we will prioritise the procurement activities that we support.

Have your say through the Engage Victoria website.

On July 1 we celebrated Recycling Victoria’s 2nd anniversary and looked back on another eventful year.

We’ve continued to make progress on our priorities and have worked closely with partner organisations to deliver initiatives and services, including:

• Building our relationships with local government, industry and the waste, recycling and resource recovery sector.
• Overseeing the launch of Victoria's Container Deposit Scheme (CDSVic), which is already creating great outcomes for Victorian communities and the circular economy.
• Publishing Australia’s first Circular Economy Risk, Consequence and Contingency Plan (CERCC Plan) to help identify and manage risks
  to essential services in our sector.
• Completing Stage 1 of the Victorian Government’s Waste to Energy Scheme, by issuing licences to existing operators.
• With our colleagues in Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, developing a service standard for household waste and recycling.
• Publishing the inaugural Circular Economy Market Report, which provides data on key material streams to inform policy and investment decisions.
• Developing the Victorian Recycling Infrastructure Plan (VRIP), to be published this year, which will guide strategic infrastructure planning for our sector over the next 30 years.
• Finalising our organisational structure and continuing to define our processes and our regulatory role.

We acknowledge our fantastic and dedicated staff and stakeholders who have contributed to these significant achievements.

Congratulations all.

New data sourced from local government, and the waste and recycling sector is now available on our Data Hub.

The new data shows that Victorian households are increasing their recycling with a higher landfill diversion rate than the national average. This has been supported by increased access to food organics and garden organics (FOGO) collections, with more than half of all Victorian councils now having access to a FOGO service.

Action towards landfill redirection remains a priority, with a range of programs underway including household recycling reforms, the container deposit scheme, Waste to Energy scheme, and investments in increased recycling and resource recovery infrastructure.

Collected annually, this critical data has been used to update the Victorian waste projection model, which forecast waste generation in Victoria till 2050. This data also provides insights into the recycling sector and allows for a better understanding of how material streams are managed in Victoria.

Insights gained from this data will inform government and industry decision making, by identifying opportunities and trends in the Victorian market to achieve a more circular economy.

View the Data Hub.

For more information or to provide feedback, please contact:

Recycling Victoria Data, Insights and Intelligence Team
rvdata@deeca.vic.gov.au

We are pleased to release our first annual Circular Economy Market Report: an overview of Victoria’s progression to a circular economy. The report provides annual information about material circularity relating to the generation, collection, sorting, re-processing or re-manufacturing of products within the circular economy market.

This information will be used to help businesses and the government to make better policy and investment decisions. ​

The Circular Economy Market Report will continue to evolve in future years, as further important work is done to expand measurement of Victoria’s material streams. The report is based on resource recovery rates as a measure of the circular economy market, understanding the current limitations to fully reporting the circularity of each material stream. ​

When a new circular economy metric is established, Victoria will have reached a significant milestone as no other Australian jurisdiction currently has a metric that effectively measures material circularity.

View the Circular Economy Market Report.

28 March 2024