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Victorians now have a four-bin system in a massive recycling overhaul for the state.

The state government announced the system along with a new container deposit scheme as part of a plan to reduce waste going to landfill by 80 per cent over the next 10 years.

Comedian and TV host Tom Gleeson tweeted how he’d “fallen in love” with his purple bin which takes glass only, every four weeks.

The green bin is for organic matter, yellow is for plastic, metal and paper and red is for general waste.

Gleeson pays extra to have two red bins.

His tweets were met with hundreds of comments from people saying they wanted one.

To answer all your questions at once:



Purple (glass only) - every 4 weeks.

Green (organic) - weekly.

Yellow (recycling) - fortnightly.

Red (general waste) - alternate fortnightly.



And I have 2 red bins because I pay extra. https://t.co/84tan7HvoD — Tom Gleeson (@nonstoptom) February 24, 2020

According to a report by Infrastructure Victoria, broken glass is among the biggest contaminants in the recycling stream.

The rollout is part of a $129 million overhaul of the state’s embattled recycling industry.

Premier Daniel Andrews hopes the initiatives will help the state reduce the amount of waste going to landfill by 80 per cent in a decade.

“This is a really big reform but it’s one that comes from common sense,” he said on Monday at Spotswood, a suburb in the inner-west that already has a four-bin system.

“It will be very warmly welcomed by households right across Victoria who are not happy to see their household waste going into landfill.”

Mr Andrews said the addition of a fourth bin for glass would reduce contamination, and improve the quality and reliability for end-users of recycled materials.

About 40 councils will move to four bins when their recycling contracts end next year, with the remainder to switch by 2025.

The reforms also include the establishment of a new dedicated waste authority to ensure a basic standard of service for Victorians.

Meanwhile, the government has not made any decisions about what form the container deposit scheme will take, what materials will be collected, and how much money people will receive.

“There are lots of different models. For instance, some states have got charity partners who do that for them, other states have got vending machine arrangements,” Mr Andrews said.

“We’ll try and pick the best elements from all the different schemes and build our own.” Victoria is the last state to adopt a cash-for-bottles program, having previously resisted calls from the public, municipal and industry bodies, the opposition and the Victorian Greens.

Victorian Greens MP Ellen Sandell welcomed the move, noting the party had attempted to introduce a scheme on four separate occasions in the past decade.

“The Greens already have a bill to introduce a 10-cent refund on bottles and cans before parliament right now. There’s literally no reason for the government to delay action,” she said.

Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien earlier this month announced the coalition was devising its own scheme as part of a policy aimed at eliminating rubbish sent to landfill by 2035.

“Victorians are suffering a waste and recycling crisis under Daniel Andrews, and all he can do is cut and paste my policies,” he said.

China’s decision to ban imports of 24 types of recyclable materials in 2018 plunged Australia’s waste management industry into crisis.

It has been particularly acute in Victoria after the state’s largest kerbside recycler went into liquidation last year, forcing several councils to send material to landfill.