Around 27,000 tonnes of green organics (prunings, grass clippings, leaves, palm fronds, small branches) will be diverted from landfill every year with the expansion of the City’s green organics service.
Water and Waste Committee recommended on Thursday 24 November that from late next year all single detached dwellings between 250 sq m and 5000 sq m across the Gold Coast would receive a green organics bin collected fortnightly.
Mayor Tom Tate said these block sizes has been chosen to represent the greatest need – with small blocks not producing huge amounts of green organics and very large blocks likely to produce too much to find the service valuable.
“Audits of residential bin services show that around 27% of materials in the general waste (red lid) bins are green organics, ending up in landfill. We just can’t operate like that in 2023,” Mayor Tate said.
“By expanding the green organics service to an additional 100,000 dwellings, we will divert approximately 27,000 tonnes of green organics from landfill; deliver a 5% increase in the baseline recycling rate for the city; and reduce the State Government Waste Levy liability.”
He said operational benefits included a lower cost per service across the city.
He said a rebate for the service would be provided to new and existing residential green organics service customers in the first year (2023-24).
This is the first step in meeting community expectation, as advised by the 2021 community consultation on the Solid Waste Strategy Mid Term Review. The expansion also provides the foundation for the potential future expansion to food organics as well as green organics, which would provide further reductions in Waste Levy liability and environmental impacts.
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