Report shows education on recycling needed

Townsville City Council is wheelie putting the focus on how residents use their bins with a waste audit conducted across the city.

AECOM were engaged to conduct a review of how waste and recycling bins are used across the city and the results show that recycling education will help alleviate pressure on Council’s waste facilities.

Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill said the audit is important for Council as it looks to improve waste services in the future.

“Council holds an audit of the city’s waste every five years and these results will help inform our strategy moving forward,” Cr Hill said.

“We are working with the North Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils on the development of a North Queensland Waste Strategy and this audit has been timed to assist with our involvement in this.

“The key findings of this report really show that we can do a few things to improve what is ending up in our rubbish bins, but that our biggest opportunity is education.”

Townsville Water and Waste Committee Chair Cr Russ Cook said one of the biggest challenges facing Council is ensuring residents are putting their waste in the right bins.

“This report identified that across the city, residents are on average filling roughly a fifth of their bins with the wrong type of waste, which is a big opportunity for us,” Cr Cook said.

“If we can get our residents recycling properly, this has flow-on benefits for the economy, as recycling creates more jobs and fills less space in our landfills.

“From this report, Council can now look at developing education programs targeted at improving recycling across the city.”