All companies collecting waste or recycling from businesses in the central city must hold a waste collector permit for each vehicle that collects waste.

Permit holders are responsible for ensuring:

• waste collection in restricted access area ‘hot spots’ is limited to between 6am and 11pm
• all bins are returned to their original point of collection
• bins are relocked after collection
• bin and customer information are kept up-to-date and provided to City of Melbourne on request.

Our Budget 2025-26 includes several changes aimed at making sure our commercial waste management system is modern, resilient and sustainable now and into the future.

One of these changes is a new annual permit fee of $5,500 per truck for commercial operators collecting waste from businesses in the CBD.

We know our CBD continues to face growing challenges for waste collection, and that the way private companies collect waste from city businesses hasn’t changed in a long time.

Following a 2024 review of the way commercial waste and recycling is managed in the CBD, we introduced a number of changes as part of our Budget 2025-26 – this included the new waste collector permit fee, which we’re introducing to:

• recover the cost of delivering commercial waste and recycling services in our CBD
• encourage waste collectors to be more efficient in how they collect rubbish from the CBD, particularly in laneways where multiple waste companies operate at various times
• reduce the number of trucks in our CBD contributing to congestion, noise and disruption to deliver environmental, safety, and amenity benefits for the community
• enable us to invest in the future of commercial waste management in the central city, in partnership with industry.

Ultimately, we want to see more new technology like waste compactors and electric vehicles being used – which would mean less frequent collections, less bins, less noise and less pollution. And as one of the only City of Melbourne permits without a fee attached, the introduction of fees for waste collector permits brings them in line with all other similar council services.

We consulted on our proposal to introduce a waste collector permit fee as part of our draft Budget 2025-26 community engagement process.

Now that the Budget 2025-26 has been endorsed, we want insights and feedback from waste collectors, businesses, residents and visitors to help inform our plan to implement the new waste collector permit fee.

We want to make sure we’re implementing the fee in a way that is smart and coordinated, and that balances the needs of everyone in our community.

These permits ensure everyone’s truck, not matter the operator, are compliant to our standards. Now that the Budget 2025-26 has been endorsed, we are working with Cleanaway directly to establish a best practice process.

There will be no change to enforcement actions. Our Local Laws Officers currently enforce on waste collectors permits. We prefer to work with and educate businesses first prior to taking any enforcement action.

Waste collectors will still be expected to keep their trucks well-maintained and compliant with Environment Protection Act 2017 (and its subordinate legislation).

No. These changes are only within the CBD.

City of Melbourne is continually reviewing and improving how we manage waste across the municipality. How we manage commercial waste is critically important to the amenity, cleanliness and safety of the CBD – and at this stage we will be evaluating whether introducing payment for these permits has the desired outcome.

The Hoddle Grid, plus the area north of the Hoddle Grid bounded by La Trobe Street to the south, William and Peel streets to the west, Victoria Street to the north, and Spring Street to the east.