Load of rubbish: Cairns councillors call on state government to bin waste levy scheme
A war on waste levies is being waged by Cairns Regional Council with ratepayers at risk of forking out a hefty fee as more of the city’s rubbish gets dumped into landfill.
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A war on waste levies is being waged by Cairns Regional Council with ratepayers at risk of forking out a hefty fee as more of the city’s rubbish gets dumped into landfill.
Hundreds of tonnes more “red-bin rubbish” is being trucked to a dump near Mareeba following a fire that destroyed the Bedminster Advanced Resource Recovery Facility (ARRF) in Portsmith last month.
As a result, more than 20 additional trucks are being used, taking the 180km round trip along the Kuranda Range and tipping around 1300 tonnes of garbage at the Springmount Waste Management Facility.
The former Labor government introduced a waste levy scheme in 2019 in a bid to increase recycling and stop rubbish from interstate being trucked into Queensland.
To cover the forecast waste levy payments through to 2025-26, 43 Queensland councils, including Cairns, received $672m from the state government to avoid passing the cost on to households.
An additional $139m was later approved to cover the 2026-27 financial year.
But the dramatic increase in garbage going to landfill coupled with the council’s failure to meet key targets is expected to hurt its coffers.
Division Two councillor Matthew Tickner said the state government scheme needed to be revised with current waste figures near impossible for local councils to meet.
“We have a number of issues we’re facing at the same time, including the loss of our facility,” Mr Tickner said.
“(Among them is) a complex and poorly co-ordinated state government waste levy, concocted on the grounds of forced environmental targets which basically tax councils for the volume of waste they send to landfill.
“The fact that no local council is able to meet these targets in my opinion should be reason enough for them to be removed or heavily revised.”
Division One councillor, Brett Moller, who is president of the Local Authority Waste Management Action Committee (LAWMAC), has also backed a review of the levy’s waste management targets.
Mr Moller said even before the Bedminster fire, the council would have struggled to reach a set target of diverting 70 per cent of its waste from landfill by 2030.
“All of the waste management regional plans have shown that none of the local government councils will meet the targets imposed,” he said.
“That means waste levies will apply at a cost to ratepayers.”
The former deputy mayor said he supported diversion from landfill but not at a cost to residents.
“The targets imposed by the state government are not realistic,” Mr Moller said.
Division Seven councillor Anna Middleton said the fire had led to some confusion within the community around recycling.
“I’d like to point out that our recycling facilities are working as normal,” Ms Middleton said.
“We are encouraging residents to use the yellow bin and continue to recycle. Please use your yellow bin properly.”
Prior to the fire, the Bedminster facility had turned general waste into compost for more than 20 years, breaking down rubbish in controlled conditions over several days.
Additional contaminants were then removed from the remaining organic material and delivered to farms across the region.
The council’s Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) is fully operational with residents encouraged to place recyclable material into their yellow lid bin so it can be recycled and reused.
A council spokesman said its is seeking an an exemption from the scheme following the recent fire “under emergency provisions”.
Mr Moller said he had written to Premier David Crisafulli and Environment Minister Andrew Powell regarding the waste levy scheme.
CAIRNS RUBBISH BY THE NUMBERS
1300 tonnes of waste being sent to landfill
20-25 additional trucks being used to transport the waste
$94 per tonne for general levy waste sent to landfill for regional councils
70 per cent of waste to be diverted from landfill by 2030
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Originally published as Load of rubbish: Cairns councillors call on state government to bin waste levy scheme
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