Weed control

How Council manages weeds

Weed management is critical to protect biodiversity and encourage indigenous flora and fauna.

Weed control is especially important along creeks and waterways, as well as in parks, garden beds, sports fields, streets and laneways.

Council employs a range of methods to manage weeds including hand weeding, slow burning, biological control and the use of non-residual chemical herbicides.

Council is committed to reducing reliance on inorganic herbicides for the control of weeds where possible and replace with environmentally-sustainable or organic alternatives.

See the Council Pest and Weed Management Policy (DOC 112Kb) for further details.

Council's 'No Spray' register

If you do not want spraying of chemically-based herbicide to occur outside your property, excluding right of ways/laneways, you can choose to be included in Council's 'No Spray' register. 

Email the Council Open Space team to register. Provide your name and residential street address to register and you will receive confirmation of registration and an information brochure providing further details about the service. 

A renewal notice is sent each year so residents can advise if they wish to continue or be taken off the 'No Spray' register.

As Council needs to maintain our city and streets in a clean and relatively weed-free state, residents included in the 'No Spray' register agree to manage weeds in the footpath and on the kerb and channel in front of and next to their property, by hand-weeding or using their own environmentally-safe product.

Recent decision about the use of Glyphosate

At the Council meeting held on 14 August 2019, Council decided to phase out glyphosate product such as Roundup over a two-year period, to favour viable alternatives to reduce the reliance on chemicals, leading to an improved environment and more sustainable outcomes. 

The two year timeline is to allow for incremental changes to the budget, continued testing and cost analyses of alternate products, with glyphosate products being phased out by August 2021. 

Government bodies remain aligned that glyphosate is safe when used in accordance with label instructions. Council does not disagree with this sentiment, however made this decision in order to create a more sustainable Merri-bek.

Use of the weedkiller 'Roundup'

Watch this video which outlines Council's stance on the use of 'Roundup' weedkiller. This video has captions.