The Shire of Chittering has trimmed its ‘waste-line’ through the introduction of kerbside collections for waste and recycling. The average amount of waste produced by each household every week has dropped from 74kgs in 2013–2014 to 42kgs in 2014–2015.
These figures are from the Shire’s annual “Waste and Recycling Census Report”, which is submitted to the Department of Environment Regulation (DER) as a requirement of the Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Act 2007.
Apart from the environmental benefit from becoming more responsible with waste, the use of existing landfill space needs to be optimised. The Shire’s two Landfill / Recycling Centres have limited lifespans.
The Western Australian Waste Strategy has the objective for regional centres to achieve a 50% reduction in waste collection by 2020. Achieving this reduction will enable landfills to be kept operational for longer than currently anticipated while forward strategies
are considered.
A major problem faced by council is the contamination of kerbside recyclables all of which ends up in landfill. The contamination rate is approximately 20 percent, bettering this would also assist with lowering the waste figures.
In early 2016, council will be seeking feedback from local residents on how the service might be improved and also sharing information about how to recycle more efficiently.
