Circular Economy Household Education Fund – Round 1: Information bulletin

[Opening visual of slide with text saying ‘Recycling Victoria Household Education and Behaviour Change Fund’]

[The visuals during this webinar are of a PowerPoint presentation being played on screen, with speakers appearing via video to the right of the screen]

Karen Cosson:

Good morning, everyone. Sorry about that. We're so sorry. We've had technical problems. Thank you all for your patience and for staring at your inboxes trying to get the new link.

We now have 40 attendees, but we had a whole lot more people register. We'll just wait, I'm getting some other messages coming in from people saying they're trying the live event hadn't started. I guess we've lost a few people, so we'll take a deep breath and good morning and welcome to you all.

And thank you for making the time to attend the information session today on the Recycling Victoria Household Education and Behaviour Change Fund. And I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the lands upon which we're all meeting today, the people of the Kulin nations, I'm paying my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.

Today you will hear from three of us from SV. I know many of you, but for those that may not know me, my name is Karen Cosson, and I'm the campaign stakeholder lead. I'll be taking you briefly through the RV policy and specifically how it relates to the Recycling Victoria (RV) household education and behaviour change program, which are now called the RV campaign for short.

Next step, we'll hear from Laura Simic, who's the campaigns advisor, grants and outreach, and she'll take you through the fund guidelines, how to apply, how the applications are assessed and the key dates.

Rayna Mishra, who's a team leader in campaigns will take you through key elements of the RV campaign. And which you'll all be aware from reading the guidelines to be eligible for a grant, you must use these SV developed campaign materials to support the introduction of your local services.

Laura will then run you through things to consider to help you decide if round one or a future round is the right time for you to apply, and she'll also do that with some scenarios. After hearing about how everything fits together it's your turn to ask questions.

If you want to send a question during the presentations, you need to click on the Q and A session icon on the right-hand side of the options on our screen. It's just up the top. On my screen, it's the third icon. And it's two little speech bubbles with a question mark in it. I hope you can find that. And if you ask a question or you can send them in at any time and I'll be moderating them, we'd really like you to include your name and your organization.

And it's particularly important because we'll answer many questions as possible during the session. If we can't get to them all we can follow up with specific inquiries for your circumstances. Or for general questions, we'll provide those written answers in a bulletin that's uploaded onto the fund web page.

The session is being recorded and the link will be on the fund web page, if you need to go back to it. And then at the end, the last thing we'll do is go after the questions and answers is I'll just run you through the resources available to help with your application and planning.

So, first of all, I'm going to go through quickly just to talk about the policy. It's just a quick check-in that I'm sure you're all very familiar with now. The policy will deliver the biggest transformation and reform of our waste and recycling industry.

And the targets that are shown there, they include reducing per capita waste generation by 15%, increasing recovery to 80%, having organics to landfill and achieving this by providing Victorian households access to food and gardens organics for recycling service, and also reducing problematic plastics.

Again, you've completed your transition plan and you're very well aware of the new household recycling services required under the policy. The list shown here is from the guidelines and we broke it down to help you identify the changes that your council plans to make. And if making the changes at separate times, which many of you seem to be doing, for you to think about where you would need the most financial support from the grant. So is it with food and garden organics for example, or is it with glass or bin lid colour change, whatever.

The campaign is being developed by SV, it's a four-year education and behaviour change program to support the introduction of that new 4-stream recycling system that I just spoke about. And we are in year one, which is the development year. The diagram shows the campaign objectives on the left with the green and how they contribute to the RV policy outcomes I highlighted earlier.

So this strong campaign reach and engagement of the statewide advertising and activity will be amplified as councils and alpine resorts take up the campaign materials in your local communities. And this will lead to increased correct recycling behaviours and also waste avoidance behaviours. And that will help us achieve those policy outcomes.

This slide shows the program and the policy, the campaign focus areas and the campaign delivery at both the statewide and local level. And Rayna is going to discuss this side further when she speaks about the campaign, but the key points to keep in mind that there is one consistent campaign for Victoria that will be delivered by SV at the statewide level and by councils at the local level. And there are two campaign focus areas shown in the middle rectangle, which were avoiding food waste and single use plastic items. And then today we are looking at the delivery of local campaigns by councils and alpine resorts with the financial support from the RV Household Education and Behaviour Change Fund.

This slide shows the range of support we are providing to councils and alpine resorts to deliver the campaigns locally. And first of all, some of you may have, and I know many of you have already been attending the campaign lab program, which is a series of online workshops to build the existing capability of council, alpine resort and waste and resource recovery group offices to plan and deliver campaigns in your local communities. So, the skills covered in the lab helps participants deliver existing local campaigns. So, they don't need to be waste and recycling, it could be about anything and they do. But it will help make the best use of the RV campaign materials and resources as they become available and you need to use them. The labs also help you plan for those new household recycling services. So, the program's taking the participants through the full campaign cycle, planning, development, delivery, and measurement and participants to get the most out of it.

We're encouraging you to attend all of the labs, which isn't always possible. The next lab is exciting. It's about tools and tactics to reach your audiences and that's on the 8th of June. So, I hope to see many of you there and then Rayna we'll cover the campaign guide and materials in her session. And now I'll hand over to Laura to take you through the funding support.

And remember, if you have any questions you can put them into the Q and A chat and we'll get to them in the Q and A session later on.

Laura Simic:

Wonderful. Thanks so much, Karen. Hello everyone. Thanks again for joining us today.

I'll be taking you through all the details of the Recycling Victoria Household Education and Behaviour Change Fund which I will refer to here in as the fund and apologies in advance for some pretty text-heavy slides. It is hard to make funding details very creative.

I do hope that you've all read the fund page and the guidelines. So hopefully all of this is fairly familiar, but I'll still go through it just to ensure we're all on the same page. The fund is to support the delivery of local campaigns by you, councils and alpine resort management boards. We have developed campaign materials to educate and help Victorians to use the household recycling services correctly to ultimately achieve low levels of contamination.

So, applicants of the fund must use the campaign materials we've developed when introducing the new household recycling services, or if you've already delivered the new 4-stream household recycling services you will need to transition to using the campaign materials we've developed. This is round one of four planned funding rounds and the timing of future rounds is likely to be in each of the next years, but it's not confirmed yet and subject to change. So, you should only apply in this round if you are introducing new household recycling services before June 2023, but we will go through that in more detail about who should apply when later in the session. So just a few things to note upfront. You can only apply and receive one grant under the fund. Each council and alpine resort management board should consider the most appropriate time to apply for them.

The grants are not competitive or eligible councils and alpine resort management boards will receive a grant. And again, you must use the campaign materials that we've developed to be eligible and the funding is linked to your Kerbside Transition Plans which you have already submitted to DELWP. And also, the grant isn't intended to support 100% of your campaign activity. There isn't a mandatory contribution through this grant but it is reasonable to expect your campaign to have some additional costs beyond the grant. And lastly the grant provides three years to implement the project. So, for round one, all projects must be completed by 30 June 2024, and this is intentional to provide you with plenty of time for planning your campaign. Of course, that's if you're not introducing the new services really soon in any way.

So how much money can you expect?

Well, for alpine resort management boards, it's fairly straight forward with a set amount of $25,000 each and for councils you will receive a set amount of $30,000 each plus a variable component and that is to a maximum of $106,000. So, we will determine the variable component for funding for councils based on population data and evidence provided in the application form on behaviour change challenges in your area. In terms of population we're using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on the number of residents, the number and density of residential properties or dwellings and we do also ask for these details in your application form as well. And then in terms of behaviour change challenges in the application form, we do ask you to detail and provide examples of possible challenges. For example, this could be seasonal population increases or perhaps a significant proportion of our culturally and linguistically diverse communities in your area.

So, we will consider your response to these questions in the application form, along with the data to determine the variable funding component for each council. There is just a quick example here. So, if Council A and Council B have a similar population but Council B has a high number of dwellings, a higher population density, and a higher rate of languages other than English spoken at home, then Council B would receive more funding compared to Council A.

Okay, so what will be funded?

Again, only activities using the campaign materials that we've developed. Also, these activities must take place in Victoria and they must be completed within three years, so for round one, again, that's before June 2024. A minimum of 60% must be used to advertise the new household recycling services locally. However, we do recommend 80% be used on advertising to ensure a broad reach across the community.

We've got some details there in the first green box about what we mean by advertising. But it's things like print, radio, direct mail, the household, social media, and then for the remaining 20 to 40% that can be used for other activities. And again, we've provided some details in the second green box but that covers things like printing, undertaking monitoring and evaluations, bin audits and engagement activities, like maybe a stall at the local market.

So now what won't be funded?

Again, you can't use the funding for activities that do not use the campaign materials that we have developed. And the funding can't be used on activities that are already funded by other government grants. And it can't be used for other project related costs like capital purchases or maintenance or repairs. And it can't be used for any retrospective project activities, and that's because they wouldn't have been using the campaign materials that we have developed. All the details of what will and what won't be funded can be found in the guidelines. But if you are unsure whether something will be covered, you can email through to our grants inquiries team for an answer.

Okay. So, next we'll just quickly look at the criteria that we will be assessing you against. So, you may have noticed the application form does have other sections, but this is really the core of the application. So firstly, we're asking you about the what. So, what are your new household recycling services that you're introducing, what are the audiences within your community that need to be engaged? And this is where you detail any behaviour change challenges as we mentioned earlier, as an input into the variable component for funding for councils.

And then we're asking about how so, how do you plan on doing this? So, we're asking you to outline the communication and engagement activities you plan to deliver at each phase of the campaign. And there is a lot of guidance in the campaign guide document to help you complete this section and that document can be found within the SmartyGrants application form. So, then we're looking for a short explanation of the why. So, you've told us what you plan on doing, but here we're looking for some really clear rationale for why you've chosen those certain activities and to really draw the link between the service, the audience, the channel, and the activities that you've outlined. So, for example in the how section, you've outlined that you're planning to do a lot of social media advertising, perhaps, and then in the why section, you might explain that you've selected social media as a challenge because it really aligns to your target audience and that you may have had great results building engagement through that channel in previous campaigns.

So then lastly, we're wanting to know the who. So, who in your team is delivering the project and do they have the capability, the capacity and the experience to do so. And we're also interested if you're planning to work collaboratively with any others to implement the project as well.

So just quickly in terms of due diligence a risk-based approach will be used to assess each applicant. Due diligence, we'll cover things like environment, safety and workplace beaches, fair work breaches, insurance, funding, history, and conflict of interest. And there are questions which covered this in the application form, but we will also be completing some checks and all of this is fully detailed in the guidelines. So again, please make sure you review that before completing your application.

And similar to due diligence, all the funding conditions are detailed in the guidelines. So, I definitely will not be reading out the slide. But I did want to put all the details here just to visually present that there are quite a few conditions tied to this funding, just like all grants. In summary, you must agree to project milestones, to receive funding, submit detailed communication and engagement plans and monitoring and evaluation plans, and then provide regular updates and final reports on these. Again, please do review the full details of the conditions in the guidelines before completing your application.

Okay. So, the application form itself is made up of five key parts.

We've already covered a lot about what it looks like, but at a high level. The first section just ask for your details and contacts for the project. Section two, ask for a project name and a timeline for the projects. Section three, asks for a profile of your council, so the population density and properties the details of your current waste and recycling services along with your current contamination, participation and engagement rates were known. And then the details of your new household recycling services, so the dates you're looking to introduce them and what the approach will be so whether it might be kerbside or drop-off. And then section four is the assessment criteria that we ran through earlier. So, the what, how, why and who, and there's also a questionnaire on project monitoring and evaluation.

And just lastly section five, due diligence, again, covering things like insurance, compliance and conflict of interest. And then there's a short checklist to ensure that you've covered all the requirements and a declaration and signature regarding the funding conditions and submit easy-peasy.

So just a quick run through of all the application steps. As I've mentioned way too many times already, please review the guidelines, read through the terms and conditions, read and understand the terms of participating in grants programs and then create an account for SmartyGrants. Or log in if you've already used the system before and start your application and you'll find the hyperlink for the SmartyGrants application in the how to apply section of the guidelines and attend the information session. So, you can all tick that one off today.

And ensure plenty of time to plan, research, gather all your supporting documents and drafting your application and to review the campaign guide as well. The fund is open for six weeks in total and we're already towards the end of week two. So, it may sneak up on you. And then lastly complete and submit the application before midnight on Friday, 18th of June.

So here are just some of the key dates as outlined in the guidelines. So, the applications opened last Monday, the 10th of May today, Thursday, the 20th of May is the information session. And as I just mentioned, the fund is opened for six weeks and applications close on Friday, the 18th of June. We are aiming to notify successful applicants in August and the funding agreements need to be established within 30 days of the notification of the outcome. And then project should commence after signing the funding agreement and they must be completed by 30 June 2024.

So of course, all these dates so indicative and they may change, but that wraps up all the details on the fund. I do know that was a lot of information but hopefully if you've all reviewed the guidelines already, it's mostly familiar to you. So, I'll now be passing to Rayna who will be discussing the recycling campaign.

Rayna Mishra:

Thank you for that Laura, it was a lot of detail. I hope you're still with us. My name is Rayna, I'm the team leader for campaigns, and I'll be taking you through our current planning for the RV campaign.

Just touching on this slide again that Karen took you through at the beginning. They show us how the RV policy relates to the campaign focus areas and the campaign delivery. The campaign focus areas involve two key streams of work flowing on from the RV policy. The first focus will be on recycling reforms. So, this includes the introduction of glass and FOGO services to work towards a 4-stream waste service. So, reducing contamination within the recycling streams and also building trust in the waste and recycling process. We'll also focus on drop-off and collection out of home services like e-waste household chemicals and soft plastics disposal.

The second focus that will be on avoiding and minimizing waste. So, which we'll look at reducing food waste and single use plastic items, but these campaign streams will be delivered at the statewide and local levels to create a consistent campaign focus. The statewide campaign, which is the green box is delivered by Sustainability Victoria. And we'll focus on a big picture information that is relevant to all Victorians. This will involve a broader approach to build understanding, trust, and support for the waste and recycling system. They'll support building social norms around low waste lifestyles and promote correct behaviour change to avoid and reduce waste in the first place. The local campaigns, which is in the yellow box, will be delivered by councils and alpine resort management and waste and resource recovery groups, which will focus on local level information that's relevant to your local residents.

So, we'll provide adaptable campaign materials and messaging to support changes to your waste systems aligned with introduction of the new household recycling services. So, these messages will support the correct use of new services and reducing the amount of waste generated.

Just a bit of background to the campaign, we're all aware of the challenges. There's persistent gap in good intentions and practices, and that the recent global and local challenges to the system have resulted in confusion and mistrust in the system. The changes under the RV policy seek to address these challenges, create the systems, support building new infrastructure and improved sorting of recyclables, manufacturing of recyclable materials and increasing the market demand for these items. The RV campaign is designed to address these things through the evidence-based, insight-led comprehensive campaign. They'll be modular, so it can be easily adapted to each council needs and tailored to specific audiences.

The program and campaign is not just straight forward information dissemination. It is based on proven behaviour change models and it's been developed through extensive research with behaviour change experts, the industry councils, and WRRGs generally and directly through a reference group of 26 offices – which includes one person from each of the seven WRRGs, and 18 from councils, including eight Metro councils, one alpine resort. The research insights we've gathered from local government is that simplicity is key. A consistent campaign that can be adopted is important. Telling the story and showing people doing the right thing and the impact of household behaviour on the recycling process. The content needs to be personally relevant and the different approaches may work for different councils. From the research, the community has told us we see that 88% of Victorians believe recycling is important, but one and two Victorians will still incorrectly recycle an item of has incorrectly recycled an item over the past 12 months. We've found males 18 to 35-year-olds and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds have a higher rate of incorrect recycling behaviour.

And there's confusion around what can and cannot be recycled and some mistrust in the sector. And lastly, recycling is a low engagement behaviour and people aren't necessarily motivated to check their knowledge. We have used these insights to guide our campaign and design interventions, and to target audiences and challenges.

We'll be providing you with a broad range of campaign materials to support you in delivering your local campaigns. These are just examples of the various campaign resources like bin stickers, letters, posters, and campaign advertising like posters and social media content that will be made available to you. Some written content like letters and web copy resources will be available from the end of the month and the creative resources will start to be available from July, pending approvals.

We are working closely with those of you who are introducing new services in the coming months to provide support. But if you haven't reached out to us and would find materials in the coming months helpful, please do reach out to Karen. We have developed a campaign guide, which covers most of what I'm presenting on today, but in more detail. The campaign guide can be found in the SmartyGrants applications form, and must be used when completing the how section of the application form as Laura discussed. The communication and engagement plan section of the campaign guide has an outline of various communication engagement activities, aligned to the five campaign phases which are preparation, pre-transition, transition, post transition, and then ongoing. And this section will support you to complete the application and, also the planning of your campaign. Also, to note the timeline of the plan is best practice to help shape your approach, we absolutely recognize that this isn't possible in all situations, especially if you are introducing services in the next few months.

So, in addition to the outline of your communication and engagement plan, you'll need to provide a short summary of how you'll monitor and evaluate your project. This is a very important part of the process as it'll help us gauge our success in reaching out householders. And there is information in the campaign guide and the application form to support you to provide these answers. These are various examples of measurement activities you can consider to determine your reach and engagement throughout the project. We're currently finalizing a monitoring and evaluation plan for the RV campaign but as an overview, we're looking at things like communication performance, like our campaign reach. That is how many people that were exposed to the advertising, website traffic, social media engagement.

And looking at education and behaviour change performance. So, looking at self-reported waste management and waste minimization in our target audiences, and at council level, waste audit data where available. Also, the council adoption rate as well, so that's how many of you are using SV campaign materials to introduce you to new household recycling services. It's really important to know that we're not looking for a complete communication and engagement plan and a monitoring and evaluation plan at this stage. We're only asking for an outline or a draft in the application form. However, you will need to complete a comprehensive plan for both of those as part of the first project milestone. So, we will be providing templates for both of these plans in the next couple of weeks as an additional resource to help you with your planning and for completing the application as well.

As outlined in the guidelines, there'll be two phases to the RV campaign. In phase one, there'll be initial materials as we discussed earlier, available from July this year. The councils who are transitioning over the next nine months or so will use these phase one campaign materials. They are based on previous SV campaigns, like know your recycling, which hopefully you're all familiar with. We also have some written content available by the end of May and creative content and designs that'll start being available from July. Based on our conversations with councils that are transitioning now or in the next couple of months, most have already developed the campaigns and materials.

So, based on these conversations, we suggest council's transitioning from around October this year, we'll be able to make full use of the phase one campaign materials. And then phase two, this will be a full suite of new materials which will be available, we were anticipating, from around early to mid-next year. The campaign concept and creative for phase two is being designed to align with lists of what will be accepted in each of the bins - FOGO, glass and mix recycling. And these lists are currently being finalized by DELWP which your waste manager should be aware of. The campaign concept of phase two has been developed in consultation with our stakeholders to ensure we're addressing the research and insights that I ran through earlier. The dates on these as subject to change based on some of the consultation that's ongoing by DELWP.

And finally, this slide shows some examples of what the phase one campaign materials in development might look like. So, as you can see, they're designed to be easily customizable. Councils will be able to add their own logos and roll-out details. And the flyer, you can amend the lists to match what is accepted locally in each bin. And we've attempted to make these as modular as possible so you can change up some of those elements. So now I'll hand back to Laura, who's going to provide some advice around when to apply. Thank you.

Laura Simic:

Great, thanks Rayna. So, I can appreciate that there may be some confusion around all these rounds and phases. And you might be wondering when to apply. So, we'll go through that now in detail, and I'll present some scenarios to hopefully make it very clear for you all.

So firstly, as we've mentioned to be eligible in round one, you need to introduce a new household recycling service before June 2023, or you may have already delivered a 4-stream household recycling service. And it's important to know you just need to be introducing one of the new services before June 2023, not both to be eligible. So, if you are not introducing a new household recycling service before June 2023, then you should definitely apply in future rounds to align with when you are introducing a new service and we will provide some extra guidance on that later.

Or you might be in the situation where you have already delivered a 4-stream household recycling service. And in this case, you can apply in round one or in future rounds, but you must transition to be using the phase two campaign materials which Rayna mentioned will be available early to mid-next year for your local campaigns. So, for councils who have already delivered the new services, the funding can support the ongoing performance of your 4-stream household recycling services, or they could be used to target any behaviour change challenges that you might've identified in your new services to further reduce any contamination or other issues. And additionally, as we have had some questions on this, the reason for transitioning to our campaign materials is to deliver consistency with the statewide and local campaigns in the coming years.

So, if you are introducing a new household recycling service before June 2023, we'll now work through some different timelines and scenarios. So, we do have different advice based on when councils are introducing new services over the next couple of years. This is dependent on if you are introducing before October 2021, between October 2021 and June 2022 or from July 2022 onwards. And when we say introducing, we mean when the new service actually commences. So, we've put these timeframes in place based on when the campaign materials are likely to be ready and to provide about three months for review, approval, planning, printing, and distributing of those campaign materials. And so, that's why we've indicated October for this year in June, July for next year. So, there is a little bit of leeway depending on whether a council would need the full three months with the campaign materials before being in a position to be able to distribute them.

So, what we'll do now is we'll work through some different scenarios to explain the advice for each of these timelines. So, in this first scenario, a council is introducing a glass household recycling service in July 2021. And looking to introduce their FOGO service further down the track. So as the introduction of their glass service is before October 2021, we'll move through the boxes on the left and in this situation, it's likely the council have already prepared their campaign for their glass service since it's about six weeks away. So, our advice to this council would be to apply in a future round when they do introduce their FOGO service.

So, it is important to note that in the next scenario, you can still access and use the phase one campaign materials we've developed to support you in introducing a new service very soon. You don't have to apply and use your one grant under the fund to do that, so you can still be eligible for funding and future rounds when you do introduce your other service. And as I mentioned earlier under phase one there will be some written content like letters to the household available from the end of this month and some creative materials like flyers and social media, tiles from July onwards to really make sure that we're able to support those councils who are introducing services very soon.

So, in this next scenario we have a council introducing a new food and organic service in February 2022. But they're going to introduce their glass service further down the track. So as this is between October 2021 and June 2022, we'll move through the boxes in the middle. And our advice to this council is that they are most welcome to apply for round one and use the phase one materials or this council may consider applying in future rounds when they introduced their glass service instead. And this decision is really up to the council, depending on which service they expect to have the greatest behaviour change challenge, or when they think the financial support will be of the most benefit to them.

In this last scenario, we have a council introducing a glass bin in May 2023. So as this is well after July 2022, we'll move through the boxes on the right. So, our advice for this council is that they can apply in round one and have plenty of time to do all of their planning or apply in the next funding round but either way they will be using the phase two campaign materials, which again will be available early to mid-next year.

As I noted earlier, we had provided three years for these projects to be completed and that's in response to council feedback about funding programs. We understand there's several steps councils need to do spending at least two years to actually commence a new service which are the steps outlined in the purple boxes. And we have designed the fund and the campaign cycle so the green infographic that Rayna spoke about earlier to really align with these steps and the council budget and planning cycles.

While the dates of the future funding rounds are not yet confirmed, we are planning on having four funding rounds and aligning these to council planning and budget cycles as much as possible across the next four years. So, this diagram provides a high-level overview of the timing of the four planned funding rounds. Depending on when you are planning to introduce a new service, that would determine which funding round you should apply in. For example, if you're planning to introduce a new service after June 2023, but before June 2024, then you'd be looking to apply in round two and so on and so forth. It is important to note that although we say the project must commence or be completed by a certain date in this table, it doesn't mean that you'd stop all communication and engagement activities relating to your new service. These can and should continue, it's just that the activities would no longer be tied to the project or funding.

And lastly, we definitely understand that some of you might be looking to introduce new services after 2026, and that is why all these timings are indicative at this stage. We will be reviewing the timing to ensure that all councils are able to apply for the fund and receive financial support.

Okay. I appreciate that's a lot of information and detail. So, I've tried to summarize it all in one little table here. So, I'll just quickly run through it. If you have already delivered a 4-stream service you can apply in this round or future rounds, but you will be using the phase two campaign materials. If you're introducing a new service before October 21, then you probably have already developed your campaign for this service so you should consider applying in a future amount when you introduce your other service. And if you're introducing a new service between October 2021 and June 2022, then you should apply in round one and use the phase one campaign materials. And if you're introducing a new service from July next year, you can apply in round one or the next round and use the phase two materials. And lastly, if you're introducing after June 2023, then you should use the previous table of the future rounds to consider when to apply in the future. And you'll definitely be using the phase two campaign materials.

So, I hope this clarifies any confusion around the rounds and the phases, but we are really happy to discuss and provide any specific advice to any councils or alpine resort management boards who were still unsure about when to apply. So, I'll now hand back over to Karen to kick off the Q and A.

Karen Cosson:

Lovely thanks for that, Laura and Rayna as well to run through the fund and those scenarios and, also the campaign. So, we do have some questions in there. So, as we went through the presentation, someone asked:

Q: are there further rounds of funding?

So, Laura address that one.

And the other question that was there was in future funding rounds from Sarah from Mildura:

Q: will it cover the implementation of services post 2024?

So, we have answered that one as well, as Laura said, we'd be meeting the needs of all councils.

Councillor Karine Haslam has asked:

Q: can we receive a copy of the slides?

We're not providing the slides, but we are providing the recording. And I've also had a message that other people were still having trouble getting in. So again, we're very sorry about that.

Zandy from Metropolitan Waste and Resource Recovery, is asking for us to remind you that your local waste and resource recovery group (WRRG), your regional one is there for assistance, and also can review your application prior to submission. And we'd all strongly encourage you to work with the WRRGs because they're very experienced at funding applications, although it's not competitive.

Q: Would changes to existing services be eligible?

I'm not sure who this is from, or if it is about changing from domestic waste and FOGO collection schedules to maximize diversion from landfill. So, I'm interpreting that possibly to be from someone who's already got a 4-stream system, and they might want to change from a fortnightly landfill collection to a weekly rubbish collection.

So, if you already did have a 4-stream service and you wanted to use the campaign materials to do that, then that's something we could discuss with you. I'm not sure if the DELWP funding for the infrastructure would apply to that as well, but as is only for the campaign funding.

Then we've got more about the funding rounds.

Q: Can we apply in two different funding rounds for two different waste streams?

So, to be clear, each council is only eligible for one grant. So as Laura said, what you need to do is work out when the financial support will be of maximum benefit to you and where your biggest behavioural challenges are. And I think the other thing to remember, because we are looking at councils transitioning over a long period of time, and the statewide advertising will start, and then councils will start using the campaign material for local campaigns. So, people will be becoming familiar with the materials, and so what might be a challenge now, so for example, in terms of people understanding about FOGO or glass might be far less of a challenge in another two or three years because wherever they go, holidays, at home, their family and friends have got those services and they've been exposed to the local communications and education and, also the statewide advertising.

Q: can the fund be used for more than one stream?

Yes, it can. So, if you're doing both at once or you already have FOGO and you're introducing glass, you can use the funding to address both of those materials. And probably phase two would be, you can choose the best time, but phase two when the full suite of campaign materials are available would be the best time.

There's a question about funding, and it's also come through as well about councils have expressed to me concern. So, we are talking to all the councils who are introducing new services, like right now up until July 2022, to talk about the phase one materials and the needs that they have. And some councils have concerns with their timings, because they haven't had the funding from DELWP confirmed, that they might've missed the council budget cycles. So, once they get the funding confirmed from DELWP for the infrastructure, they might change the current timeline in the transition plan. So, that is fine. And as Laura said, they still need to start the project by June 2023 and finish it by June 2024.

So, if you're in that situation, I'd encourage you to speak with us about that and also consider there will be funding rounds in the future.

This is a specific one from Rand at Whittlesea, and I think I'll address that, and will follow that up with you personally.

Mentoring and evaluation, very good question from Antonia at Miranda council:

Q: would monitoring and evaluation activities be funded?

So, that is included in the other activities but please remember that when we say with the communication and engagement with your community and this grant won’t fund 100% of your activities. So, councils, as Laura said, you're not required to do a co-contribution, but you will need to put funding towards communication and engagement activities.

So within that you would use the SV funding for your advertising and other things, but yes, monitoring and evaluation could be part of that. And then I think with the DELWP funding you can, I'm not sure. I think bin audit's might be part of that, particularly for those councils who've already got a 4-bin service, but don't quote me on that. Sorry, I should have checked.

Q: Can you use the campaign materials without applying for a grant?

That's also a very good question. And yes, the campaign materials are designed so that they will be freely available for councils to use them. And I think if you've got a contamination problem at the moment that you're trying to solve, then they would be available from where normally the SV campaign materials are available from, the resources section on our website.

So, we will be making those available. And again, if you have a choice, phase two, when the full suite of materials is available would probably be your best bet.

Oh, okay. Now there's one here about the statewide advertising.

Q: Would council’s see the statewide advertising before it's launched?

From Graham through at Yarra Ranges Council. And Graham’s saying that their councils got concerns and residents seeing the campaign and starting some changes in behaviour before council has changed the service.

So, I think we probably all remember when the recycling Victoria policy was announced last February, it talked about 4-bins or four service recycling, 4-streams that people were contacting the council and saying, when am I getting my purple bin? So, the SV advertising will be very high level, and it will talk about changes coming, and you need to keep up to date with your local council.

So, it won't be saying specifically everyone's getting full bins and your purple bin will be coming soon, because for exactly that reason Graham, that it would be confusing for the community and also annoying for councils. So, we will be avoiding that.

And Antonia from Miranda has asked:

Q: is there a list of campaign materials that council will have access to in phase two so that you can assess which materials might best suit your needs for your internal communications team?

So, in the campaign guide there, Rayna has showed a list of materials and the campaign guide also has a list of materials that will be available. And the full suite of materials would have the things that councils use and ask for. And that, the reference group has recommended that we include, so bin stickers, bin tags, fridge magnets there's a whole lot of written content, that's website, FAQ's, letters to the community, those sorts of things, so.

Rayna Mishra:

Just to confirm that we won't be taking any of the resources away. So, if anything, in phase two, if we can we'll add more resources in based on feedback, but it won't be that we take anything away.

Karen Cosson:

Thanks Rayna.

Q: When will applications for round two be open?

Laura's slide, which showed the timing so, next year, and we're trying to align that with the council budget cycle. So ideally round two would open earlier than May as it did this year but that needs to be confirmed. And that's what we'd be looking at working towards. I hope that answers the question.

Q: How will the campaign materials change between phase one and phase two?

So, I think that's a very good question.

Hope you're all aware regarding DELWP, because it's a very, very important thing for us with recycling. DELWP is developing the list of standardized items for each bin. What will go in the FOGO, what will go in the glass, lids on lids off, the types, what we're going to mix recycling the types of plastics, all of that sort of thing. So, those three lists will be finalized later this year. And obviously for the campaign, we need to know what goes in each bin to finalize the full suite of materials. So, the phase two materials will be aligned with the DELWP standard contents list.

Rayna Mishra:

And to quickly jump in.

Karen Cosson:

Yup. Thank you.

Rayna Mishra:

The phase one materials, as I showed you a quick snapshot before, will be a transition between the campaigns that us we have been running. So, familiar looking campaign materials, and that look at the way people are going to transition into the new household services And, then the phase two materials will be a fresh suite of materials, that will be consistent across statewide and local advertising as well. And once we have something approved that we're able to show people, we'll be able to talk about it a bit more.

Karen Cosson:

Thanks Rayna. Pete from South Gibson, I grew up in South Gibson. Hey. He’s just asking in case he's missed it. And it's a very good point for us to reiterate:

Q: Can funding cover direct mail at costs?

So yes, and that's in think back to Laura's slide, she had advertising direct mail classified as advertising. And we do understand that that is a very costly activity to reach your community it's effective, but it's costly.

So, I think there's a question from Brian at Alpine Shire asking about properties and the funding. In the application, we ask about how many households you need to reach. So, Brian's asking:

Q: does it include non-residential commercial properties and land currently vacant?

So, that's a very good question. We would like to know how many households you need to reach, because this is about households and not businesses. Not sure if Brian is meaning you might not know which are households, which are commercial. I'm not sure. So please follow that up with me if I haven't answered that correctly or in enough depth.

And okay, well go back to Whittlesea, because Amanda from city of Whittlesea has said:

Q: we'll roll out the four-bin system in stages. Should we apply for one round only to cover all services under the four-bin system? Or should we apply for one round per service rollout?

So, I think that's a good question. And again, the answer to that is you are eligible for one grant and it's for councils to determine when is the best time to use the word where you need the funding support. Is it early on when you make a change? Is it later, is it to do with a particular stream, like is FOGO likely to be more challenging than glass? And as more councils have introduced glass, we will have more information about the challenges that households face and about contamination rates. The whole program, even though we call it the RV campaign shorthand, it is an education and behaviour change program as has been emphasized by Rayna and it's got a whole lot of monitoring and evaluation that was also highlighted and that's ongoing. So, as we get research throughout the campaign, we will be feeding that back to you. So, we'll be able to you how the community is shifting in the recycling behaviours and what are the challenges and what aren't.

So again, in another three years something that is a challenge now, like the FOGOs, people confused about what they're putting in the FOGO, may not be still challenging in three year. Can I put in the bin liner? compostable packaging? This is something the standardized lists will provide an answer to that. And they'll just be one system across the state and, also there'll be the advertising, neighbouring councils and statewide, so it will be easier and the research should show that and we will share that with you. Yep. Sorry. That was long-winded.

Laura Simic:

Sorry. Thanks Karen. I might just quickly make an extra point on that question in particular from Amanda. So, you should apply for one grant to cover all changes under the four-bin system. So, although you can only apply for one grant and within one certain round it's not limited to only support one service or new service change. Your campaign could involve supporting the introduction of both new services, if you are rolling them out together or just one. There aren’t any limitations on the actual service change in terms of what your campaign can support only that you can only get one lot of funding overall. I hope that helps. And there was an additional question. That was quite similar to that as well.

Karen Cosson:

Thanks Laura. Thank you. Brian from Alpine has asked another couple of good questions. So, he has said:

Q: if we apply in round one, because their planning timeline fits with that before July 2023, but for whatever reason, there is a change in your timeline, what would happen?

So many of you I'm sure would have had SV contracts in the past, and there might be things that change. So, you apply for a contract variation. So, it's the same. So, if things change, circumstances change, your reprocessor something happens to them and they can't take the materials and you know that we can negotiate a contract variation. And then in a worst-case scenario, if you'd plan to do your project that within the timeline of the three years before June '23 and '24 for round one, and then that totally blew out, we can terminate the contract.

So, you're not locked in forever. And for the council where there's a bit uncertainty about the timing, please talk to us because it would be better to apply and know that you've got the money secured for your council planning and budget processes. And then we can look at which one, and there was another one I think Brian had another question but my colleagues have dismissed them, there was another one Brian had, which was similar, but it's gone now.

And so, I think we've answered all of those questions. So, are there any more questions? So even though we started late which again, I'm so sorry about, it was a technical thing and the link didn't work with, I don't know, not an IT specialist and we don't know why that happens. But I was getting a lot of messages from people and phone calls saying they couldn't get in.

So again, we're very sorry. And I do think we've missed some people are looking at the number who here that is 48 people. But we still have 15 minutes. So, if there are more questions please pop them in the Q and A chat, which is the two little speaking bubbles with the question mark. And Rayna and Laura, are there any other things you'd like to reiterate at this stage?

Laura Simic:

Nothing for me. Thank you to everyone who came along today and we do have an email address on the screen as well. If you have any questions, please send it through to us and we'll try and best support you however we can. Especially if you're transitioning in the next few months, please get in touch with us. And we'll try and help you as best we can. Thank you everyone.

Karen Cosson:

So, we have got one more slide. So, we might just move to the resources before we finish.

Q: I missed the start of this session when were the recording be made available?

I think Laura, you said today. In an ideal world, it would be today.

Laura Simic:

Sorry, just a little bit of admin in the background that has to happen to do that. So hopefully in the next couple of days the recording will be available or through their fund web page.

Karen Cosson:

Which is exactly what we're going to talk about with the resources. So, this slide shows the resources that we have to support you in applying to the fund and also in delivering your local campaign. So please review the fund web page and the guidelines. And then again in SmartyGrants, you need to have a login to get in. And once you've started your application, once you go in there into SmartyGrants, you'll find the campaign guide. And that's got a whole lot of information that Rayna talked about in there to help you with your planning in the coming weeks. We'll have a communications and engagement plan and a monitoring and evaluation plan template to support your planning. I'm very sorry. They're not available right now.

If anyone attended the campaign lab two weeks ago, long, was it only last week? I think it was only last week. I did go through a high-level communication and engagement plan. So, you could use that. And that was in the workbook and also the table shows the campaign lab program. So, this just shows you the journey that we've all been on. So, what we've done is we've looked at the research, what's the problem we need to solve, how are we going to solve it? What interventions do we need? Who is our target audience? What would success look like? Some of the behaviour change models available, which ones would we use? And then the last one was planning your campaign. So, the next two are on understanding and choosing the campaign tools and tactics, and because there's so many, we've split them into part one and part two.

And part one is looking at more of the non-paid, the unpaid activities. And part two is the advertising, which used to just be simple when it was print, radio and possibly TV. And now with digital and there's just so many different advertising channels available, so that we'll look at that in depth. And the last one very important, how can we create a local movement to amplify the campaign messaging and help us create the social norms of correct recycling and also food waste avoidance.

And I think I just saw another question...

Q: Can I start a dummy application so that I can prepare to apply for round two?

I don't see any reason why not... I would recommend you planning early, is what I'd say first to anonymous. And it's really helpful. I was encouraging councils that are making any changes post June 2023, to come along today because we really tried very hard to align the fund with that council planning and budget cycle. So, we know that you need to put your plans up to council and get the budget and that's a long time out. And going back to that table that Laura saying, well, we know also know that you consult with the community very early on. So yes, that would be a good one to see what's required to help with your planning.

Laura Simic:

Just jumping in this-

Karen Cosson:

Yes.

Laura Simic:

In SmartyGrants you can download a PDF without starting an application as well. If that helps without having to go through the entire application to do a test run. Thanks.

Karen Cosson:

Good point, Laura, Sarah from Mildura…

Q: in future funding rounds, will that also be four years for implementation?

So, SV contracts are generally three years that would make sense for administration and all sorts of things. So, anything over three years has to go to our board. So, when we've set this up, we've said your project needs to commence before June 2023, and be completed by the following year. So, Laura's brought that slide up, which shows that, because the policy requires FOGO to be accessible to households by 2027 and, oh, sorry, no glass by 2027 and FOGO by 2030. So, I think that's answered that question. And as it says there in the note, we'll work with any councils who are transitioning after 2027 as well. The idea is the same as the DELWP funding is based on the principle of no disadvantage. So, everyone is eligible for a grant if you submit an application. So, if you're at the sort of the long tail of the policy period, we will be accommodating councils as much as we can.

So, I think that's it... Any more last-minute questions? No.

So, if you do have questions yes, as it said in the resources, submit them to the grants.enquiries email, it is on the website. There it is. Sorry. I forgot to mention that. And yes, the fund closes at 11:59 pm on Friday, the 18th of June, four weeks to go so strongly encourage you to start early, as Laura said. Thank you all for attending today. Again, we're so sorry for the problems earlier. And the recording will be up in a few days, so thank you.

Rayna Mishra:

Thank you everyone.

Laura Simic:

Thanks.

Karen Cosson:

Bye everyone.

[End of transcript]