Queenslanders back to creating 540kg of waste each per year

Queensland households are throwing out increasing amounts of rubbish as recycling rates dive, with a new waste report revealing meagre improvements during Covid-19 have been undone.

Queensland households are throwing out increasing amounts of rubbish as recycling rates dive, with a new waste report revealing meagre improvements made during Covid-19 have been undone.

And more than half of Queenslanders aren’t aware there’s a program in place to reduce waste, with the progress report showing the state is on track to reach just two out of its nine goals set for 2025.

The state government reinstated a waste levy and released a major waste reduction strategy in 2019 following significant uproar over Queensland becoming the dumping ground of other states.

A compulsory review of the strategy was meant to be done three years in but was only released by the Department of Environment in recent days, significantly behind deadline.

It had been previously revealed Queensland’s household and community waste had increased in 2022, with the Waste Strategy Review confirming this was a nosedive on progress made since 2019.

Queenslanders are now back to creating 540kg of waste per person a year, similar to 2018 levels.

A total of 2.86 million tonnes municipal waste — or rubbish thrown into red-top bins and collected from other parts of the community like parks — was generated in 2022.

The reasons why are “not definitively known” the report noted, though the impact of natural disasters including the southeast Queensland floods and “changing consumption patterns” were flagged as factors.

Queensland Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon said the government had always acknowledged there was “more work to do”.

Just 27 per cent of municipal waste was being diverted from landfill and into recycling in 2022 — the lowest level since 2014, the third decline in a row, and far off the 50 per cent target the state hoped to achieve in 2025.

But the target for 75 per cent of construction and demolition waste to be diverted from landfill has been achieved ahead of time, with the industry reaching the 2025 goal in 2020 and sustaining the levels to date.

As it stands, Queensland has one of the lowest overall recycling rates across the country at 56 per cent of all waste — in front only of Tasmania (51 per cent) and the Northern Territory (19 per cent).

A survey of 1500 people for the review found 45 per cent were not aware of the waste strategy.

Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon said the government had always acknowledged there was “more work to do”, pointing to recent moves to potentially ban the dumping of solar panels, phasing out single use plastics, and expanding the cash for containers scheme to wine bottles.

“We’ve also got $1.1bn committed to drive behaviour change … and build our recycling capacity closer to home,” she said.

Opposition environment spokesman Sam O’Connor said the government had “failed to communicate” to Queenslanders about why the impact of waste needed to be reduced and as a result was “failing in almost every measure”.