For years, Australians have had the idea of recycling, repurposing and reusing hammered into their psyche, but it could all be a thing of the past soon with some local councils set to give up the practice for good.
Ipswich City Council in Queensland has announced it is ditching recycling completely because it’s no longer affordable to the taxpayer. In a statement, Ipswich Mayor Andrew Antoniolli said recycling contractors notified the council that the current fee for recycling would increase dramatically to an additional $2 million each year — or a 1.5–2 per cent rate rise — if the practice was to continue.
Antoniolli noted that while Ipswich residents were doing their best to recycle properly, contamination in the Queensland city’s recycling was “unacceptably high”.
Antoniolli explained. “For recycling to continue, that simply means we need to reduce by half the amount of pizza boxes, food waste, plastic bags, disposable nappies, grass clippings and garden waste, broken plates, coat hangers, light bulbs, dirty tissues and serviettes, and foam packaging.”
While their recycling won’t be repurposed, the city is still asking residents to use their yellow-lid bins. Instead, the recycled items will be dumped into landfill and the city will look for ways to convert the waste into clean energy.
“The focus on recycling will now be very much about waste reduction,” Ipswich Deputy Mayor Wayne Wendt said. “Everybody plays a role in the protection of our environment, and ways to reduce waste now become even more important to our daily lives.”
Ipswich isn’t the only city facing a recycling issue. The Age reports that the Maroondah Council in Victoria is raising bin collection prices by $68 a year because China is no longer accepting Australia’s recycling waste.
Earlier this year, Victoria’s Maribyrnong Council came under fire after rummaging through resident’s rubbish bins to ensure people were recycling properly. People who weren’t deemed to be doing a good job found notes stuck to their bins that read: “Oh no! We ask one small favour. Please do not put recyclable items in your garbage bin”.
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Sunil Bhalla, Director at Infrastructure Services, previously told Starts at 60 the Maribyrnong Council had inspected thousands of residents’ bins in a bid to get them to clean up their act.
“Late last year we commenced a five month campaign to change resident behaviour regarding kerbside waste and recycling,” she said. “During the Recycle Right campaign, 10,000 household recycling and waste bins will be inspected to provide insights on the common waste mistakes being made and this information will be used to better educate our residents.
“We are committed to reducing recycling contamination by 50 per cent and increasing waste diversion to 46 per cent. We hope that through this campaign we reinforce positive recycling behaviour. This is not about punishing households but about evaluating waste practices.”
While that measure seems to be working in Victoria, the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) also told ABC News other councils will likely follow Ipswich’s lead by scrapping recycling programs. However, Brisbane Deputy Mayor Adrian Schrinner said Brisbane would not be scrapping recycling.
“After the news from Ipswich today, a number of people have asked me whether Brisbane City Council is considering plans to scrap our recycling program The answer is absolutely NOT,” he wrote on Facebook. “Brisbane has one of the most successful (and largest) recycling programs in the nation and we are fully committed to continuing it.”
Meanwhile residents across Queensland could face fines for leaving their wheelie bins on the kerb for more than 24 hours before or after rubbish collection day. Under the proposed law, called Local Law Number 9, residents would be hit with a $2523 fine for not bringing their bins in on time.