Towards Zero Waste. A Noosa Ideal

Noosa Council has taken another step in its ambitious journey towards reducing the mountain of waste we produce each year.  

As our wheelie bins are collected each week, over one fifth of what we put into general waste could easily be recycled using the existing recycling bin service.  That's 75 tonnes every week, a mountain of 4-thousand tonnes a year of waste that should not be going into landfill.

This is just one of the issues identified by an initial, scoping study presented to council this week as Noosa attempts to find smarter ways to tackle waste that reflect our Biosphere status.

Last night's council meeting gave the go-ahead for the next step in its "Towards Zero Waste" strategy.    This will involve tendering for a specialist consultant to develop options around the big waste issues.  After that the public will have their chance to have a say.

While the new council has already restored the popular annual kerbside bulk waste collection that's currently underway, it's determined to keep making progress and to protect environmentally sensitive areas around the Eumundi Road recycling and disposal facility.

The Lloyd Consulting report put to council this week identified five key themes that our community needs to focus on:

Waste avoidance; involving community education and engagement, drawing on the best campaigns in Australia and overseas.

Cutting Organic Waste; garden and food waste make up  about 50-percent of what ends up in landfill.

Improving recycling; reducing that 4-thousand tonne mountain of Noosa landfill each year that could easily be recycled.

Commercial waste options; including a review of whether commercial waste should be opened up to private competition, rather than the single contractor currently engaged.

Fees and charging structure;  a review of whether residents are charged fairly across the shire and whether changes should be considered to encourage waste avoidance and recycling.

2 May 2014