As National Recycling Week comes to a close, Townsville City Council is thanking residents for their commitment to recycling and encouraging them to aim even higher.
Townsville recycles around 15,000 tonnes of material each year, but has seen an increase in recycling contamination over the past 12 months.
Council Water and Waste Committee chairperson Russ Cook said the average household creates around 8 kilograms of recycling each fortnight.
“Each month, the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Townsville recycles around 700 tonnes of cardboard, 400 tonnes of glass and 50 tonnes of mixed plastics,” Cr Cook said.
“Our Tip Shop on Magnetic Island also reached an all-time best for the month of October by diverting over 2 tonnes of items away from landfill, reaching a total of 15.5 tonnes saved for the year.
“These are impressive numbers, but there are easy ways that the city can continue to improve their recycling habits and reduce contamination.
“Most of our contamination does come from plastic bags, soft plastics and nappies making their way into our recycling bins.
“Households should avoid bagging their recyclable waste and place any nappies and soft plastics into the red-lidded bins.
“On average, there are 11 Container Refund Scheme (CRS) eligible drink containers per household placed into the waste bin per week. This means the Townsville community is missing out on around $4.5 million in container refund revenue per year.”
Cr Cook said Council will continue to look for ways to improve waste management across the city for the benefit of the environment and the economy.
“The recycling and re-use management of waste creates up to three times the number of jobs as traditional methods such as sending waste straight to landfill,” he said.
“It also minimises our footprint on the environment and reduces the need to spend money on expanding our landfill capacity as often.
“That’s why Council is running the FOGO trial now, which has already diverted more than 45 tonnes of organic material from landfill, and offer initiatives such as kerbside collection and free green waste disposal at all of our waste facilities.
“We’ve made it our aspiration to reach zero waste to landfill by 2030 and we want to take the entire community on this journey.”
