As COVID-19 cases continue to be active in Latrobe City, residents are being urged to take extra precautions when disposing of their garbage for kerbside collection.
Latrobe City Council is reminding residents that if a case of COVID-19 is present in your household – or if there is a risk of an occupant being a close contact of a positive case – you need to be vigilant about minimising the risk of inadvertently passing on the virus to others through disposing of your rubbish.
COVID-19 is spread from person to person through such interactions as:
- Close contact with an infectious person
- Contact with droplets from an infected person’s cough or sneeze
- Touching objects or surfaces such as doorknobs or tables contaminated by cough or sneeze droplets from a person infected with COVID-19 and then touching your mouth or face.
“It takes just a little extra time to make a big difference to the risk of contracting COVID-19 posed to our rubbish collectors and others in the community,” Latrobe City Council Mayor Cr Dan Clancey said. To help minimise the risk, Latrobe City residents are urged to:
- Wash their hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and warm water before taking their bin to the kerb, and also afterwards
- If you take a bin out on behalf of others, wear gloves and dispose of them by placing them in plastic bag and then in a bin
- If you or a member of your household has COVID-19, you can continue to place all your usual rubbish in your red lid garbage bin for kerbside collection. Wash your hands afterwards.
The following disposable items should be placed in a sealed plastic or paper bag and then disposed of in your red lid garbage bin for kerbside collection: tissues, cleaning cloths, disposable masks and gloves.
Paper, cardboard and other recyclables that have mixed with these items should also be placed in your red lid bin.
To help waste collectors, be sure to:
- Compact rubbish, if possible, before putting it in your kerbside general waste bin.
- Don’t compact waste that is already in the bin. It may become stuck and not empty properly.
- Don’t overfill waste or recycling kerbside bins or put them where they may easily tip over or spill.
- Disposable face masks, tissues and gloves can only be disposed of in garbage bins.
Council will continue to collect waste from kerbsides and Council’s transfer stations will remain open during stage 3 restrictions in Victoria, in response to the pandemic.
