How much rubbish Cairns Regional Council is sending to landfill following fire at waste recovery facility

Cairns is dumping truck loads more rubbish into landfill each week. FIND OUT HOW MUCH AND WHY

Cairns Regional Council's Portsmith transfer station was closed to the public following a large fire at the facility's Bedminster Advanced resource Recovery System on Thursday January 23, 2025. The fire site has largely been cleared, but the damage to the structure of the building is still evident. Picture: Brendan Radke

Cairns is dumping hundreds of tonnes more rubbish into landfill each week with service providers yet to identify an alternative plan after the city’s major waste recovery facility burned down.

Since the blaze that destroyed the Portsmith Bedminster plant in late January, Cairns Regional Council has been forced to send an extra 25 trucks to Springmount Waste Management Facility each week on the Atherton Tablelands.

In total, around 65 trucks are taking the 180km round trip along the Kuranda Range, with about 1300 tonnes of garbage tipped into the landfill near Mareeba every week, a council spokesman said.

Member for Cairns Michael Healy is concerned with the volume of waste currently going to landfill. Picture: Brendan Radke

Finding alternatives to piling on more waste at Springmount was important, Member for Cairns Michael Healy said.

“There’s been a lot of concern raised about the efficiency of the council and how it’s operating, but I hope that they’re on top of this,” Mr Healy said.

“It is a vitally important component to our community to ensure that we can keep recycling and that we’re not sending it straight up to landfill, which is not good for the environment.”

Cairns Regional Council's Portsmith transfer station will reopen to the public on Thursday, February 6. The tip has been closed to the public following a large fire at the facility's Bedminster Advanced resource Recovery System on January 23, shutting down the facility. The fire site has largely been cleared, but the damage to the steel structure of the building is severe. Picture: Brendan Radke

Opened in the early 2000s, the council’s contract with utilities company Veolia to run the Bedminster Advanced Resource Recovery Facility was due to expire in August 2026, a spokesman said.

“The intent was to reconfigure the bulk of the facility for waste management and resource recovery processes,” he said.

“With the advent of new technologies, the impending expiration of the Bedminster contract, and the need to meet higher landfill diversionary targets, (the) council has been exploring all options to improve its resource recovery.”

The Bedminster facility has processed general waste into compost for decades, running garbage through three 60m digestion tubes, breaking the rubbish down in controlled conditions over several days.

The remaining organic material was then matured over the course of a month with any additional contaminates removed before delivering the compost to farms across the region.

“It was really new technology back then,” Division Five councillor Rob Pyne said of the facility.

“The fact that you could put garbage in one end, then get compost out the other was remarkable.

“But times have changed and there wasn’t as much plastic around.”

Cairns Regional Council Division Five councillor Rob Pyne says the post-Bedminster waste strategy must repurpose even more rubbish. Picture: Brendan Radke

The council shouldn’t be rushed into replacing the Bedminster plant, Mr Pyne said.

“There will be different waste solutions put to us,” he said. “I’m sure our people are looking at a variety of options for us and we’ll see what they are.

“But the objective has to be to repurpose and recycle as much as possible. I don’t think there’s ever been as sharp a focus on that.”

Originally published as How much rubbish Cairns Regional Council is sending to landfill following fire at waste recovery facility