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Community ideas shape Ipswich’s plan for reducing waste to landfill

A huge response from the Ipswich community will help shape ways for the city to become more sustainable with its resources and reduce the amount of waste our community sends to landfill.

The average Ipswich household sends about one tonne of waste to landfill each year. More than 70 per cent of those materials could be diverted from landfill today.

There were 351 contributions to the ‘Reducing Our Waste’ survey on Shape Your Ipswich in November 2020, as well as almost 860 comments on six Facebook posts.

Mayor Teresa Harding said the community input was valuable to council’s waste diversion strategies in order to meet ambitious State and Commonwealth Government waste reduction targets.

“How Ipswich City Council manages the waste we create in our community is vital to having a liveable city now and into the future, and council is committed to listening to ratepayers’ feedback,” Mayor Harding said.

“Our recently adopted Waste and Circular Economy Transformation Directive is reflective of this council’s intent on addressing the waste and recycling challenges ahead of us.

“We are very keen to work with all stakeholders – in industry, government and the community – for a brighter future on waste and resource recovery.”

Key survey findings included:

  • More than half of respondents said they knew food scraps can go in the green waste bin in Ipswich, yet only a quarter said they actually used their green bin for food scraps at home.
  • More than 91 per cent supported re-introducing glass to the yellow lid recycling bin. 60 per cent were putting glass in the red lid bin for general waste.
  • A third of respondents donate most or all of their large items. This was the most popular preference.
  • There was a fairly even split between keeping the current free two-year large item kerbside collection (51.5 per cent) and switching to a low-cost on-demand service (48.5 per cent).
  • More than 60 per cent wanted to travel only 10km to a Recycling and Refuse Centre.
  • When building new Recycling and Refuse Centres, respondents wanted to ensure new centres were cost effective, minimised impact on the environment and did not cause odour issues for residential areas.

Also read:

>> Ipswich leads the way with landmark waste and circular economy directive

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