It’s not the most glamorous front-page topic, but when you look at the numbers, it’s certainly the heaviest.
Last year, our Shire delivered 9,600 tonnes of waste to the landfill. To put that in perspective, 9,600 tonnes is roughly equivalent to 1.3 Eiffel Towers. That is a massive amount of “stuff” sitting in our local backyard.
Why does this matter to your wallet? Aside from the environmental impact, there is a literal cost to our “throwaway” culture. Last year alone, we paid the NSW Government a staggering $504,694 in waste levies. That is over half a million dollars leaving our community just for the privilege of putting things in the ground. Because our waste operations are cost-neutral—meaning the Council doesn’t make a profit—those costs are shared directly by us, the ratepayers.
It’s not all doom and gloom! We successfully diverted 820 tonnes from landfill last year through scrap metal and e-waste recycling. Plus, there are two big changes on the horizon to make our lives easier:
FOGO is coming: By 2027, a third bin for food and garden waste will arrive, potentially extending our landfill’s life by 8 years.
The “Lid” Legend: You can finally stop agonising over plastic bottle tops! You can now leave them on the bottle when you toss them in the yellow bin. The facility at Tuncurry has some clever new tech that flattens, flakes, and separates them automatically.
As you read through Councillor Steve Low’s report on page 13, keep that half-million-dollar levy in mind. Every bit of recycling we get right is money that stays in the Shire rather than going to the state government. THINK new roads! – Cathy Schneider
