Council avoids wasted future
Dumping to landfill should be a last resort, instead of the first option
The hillside is bare earth, strewn with litter, and dotted with towering mountains of rubbish. As a Sunshine Coast resident, you would have created 1.28 tonnes of waste over the last financial year, and 0.71 tonnes would have ended up in landfill like this. Crows swoop among the piles of refuse, while earth-moving machinery sits silently nearby. Sunshine Coast Environment Council Manager Narelle McCarthy says landfill sites like this can often be out of sight and out of mind for residents. “They just close the lid on their rubbish bin and don’t think any more about it,” she says.
But space at the region’s two biggest tips is running out. This has placed the Sunshine Coast Regional Council at a crossroads, as it decides what to do with the 378,683 tonnes of rubbish that Sunshine Coast residents create every year.
To add urgency to the problem, the region’s rubbish will soon come directly into sight and into mind when extra costs are passed on to ratepayers. The federal government will impose a price on carbon emissions by 2010, and the state government is proposing a landfill levy, which could be introduced later this year.
But since two of the Sunshine Coast’s three major landfill sites are almost full, the council is in a position to find a solution that avoids new government levies and creates a more sustainable future. To discuss those solutions, the council held a forum on September 25, 2008 called the New Directions in Waste Management Symposium. Around 60 people – including environmentalists, councillors and the state Sustainability Minister – gathered at the Kawana Community Centre.
The Sunshine Coast Environment Council was one group invited to participate. Ms McCarthy says, “Basically it was an opportunity to explore alternatives to waste management.” She says landfill is now recognised as yesterday’s way of dealing with waste, and that new and innovative methods need to be looked at.
The Kulangoor Anti-Dump Action Group (KADAG) was another group invited to the forum. The former Maroochy Shire had planned to solve its waste problems by opening a new dump at Kulangoor, between Nambour and Yandina, and KADAG has spent the last two years fighting the plan. Spokesman Peter Sheen says the group is relieved the Sunshine Coast Regional Council is looking at alternatives to the Kulangoor dump, although the council has still not made a final decision.
That decision could be made next month. The Sunshine Coast Regional Council’s environment portfolio spokeswoman Cr Keryn Jones says the official report from the waste forum will be completed by mid-November. The report is likely to recommend a regional waste taskforce, comprised of council staff, experts and outside consultants. Cr Jones says the taskforce will guide the council towards an aspirational target of 75 per cent recycling of all waste. Council documents show the region recycled only 45 per cent of its waste in 2006/07.
Increased recycling will divert waste away from the region’s landfill sites, which are almost full. Cr Jones says the Nambour landfill will be filled in four years, and the Caloundra landfill will be full in just two years. The Noosa landfill, though, could last another 20 years.
Cr Jones says the proposed landfill levy, emissions trading and new technology has changed the way we need to look at waste. She says that under the proposed new charges, landfill could become as expensive as alternative waste treatment. “At the moment, they are by-and-large not feasible, because landfill is ridiculously cheap, because none of the externalities are factored in,” she says.
But once carbon trading is introduced, landfill could cost upward of $90 per tonne, which is the same price as alternative waste disposal. Cr Jones says there is also uncertainty surrounding carbon trading. “Emissions trading permits are likely to come in at $20 per tonne straight off, but who knows how high they’ll go? They could go sky high, because they’re auctioned every year, and nobody knows what the price is going to be.” She says an alternative waste system would provide certainty in prices.
Carbon trading will be costly for the council because landfill is the council’s biggest carbon emitter. A council report states that in 2006/07 the former Maroochy Council produced 144,027 tonnes of greenhouse gases, of which 65 per cent was from waste. When that 65 per cent was divided into individual sites, the stand-out producer of greenhouse gases was the Nambour landfill. It produced just over 70,000 tonnes, followed by the Coolum landfill, which produced less than 10,000. Mr Sheen says that capturing all greenhouse gases from existing landfills in Australia could cut carbon emissions by 7 per cent. “That’s an enormous figure for one industry alone. It’s absolutely crazy if we don’t start doing that sort of thing. So we don’t want to put organic waste into landfill. We want to process that waste,” Mr Sheen says.
Ms McCarthy says there are ways of ensuring our landfill produces less carbon emissions. “Organics shouldn’t even end up in landfill in the first place,” Ms McCarthy says. She says people need to be more responsible for their organic waste, which means improved composting and recycling.
The state government could also impose a landfill levy as part of the new Queensland Waste Management Strategy, which is expected to be introduced later this year. The discussion paper, which was released 12 months ago, states the new strategy will be based on the waste hierarchy. Ms McCarthy says, “The waste hierarchy is where you’ve got a pyramid, and the biggest base of the pyramid should be waste avoidance, and then minimization, and then management, and then the very tip should be disposal.”
This system encourages recycling or reusing waste, so that dumping it in landfill is a last resort instead of the first option. Reusing rubbish can also generate revenue for the council, and a council report shows it made over $4 million in 2007/08 from selling recovered rubbish “It’s about looking at waste as a resource,” Ms McCarthy says. “There’s a lot to be gained from recovery and recycling.”
The discussion paper states the new government strategy will also be based on a user pays principle. Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory are the only states or territories which do not impose a landfill levy. The aim of a levy would be to encourage recycling and discourage dumping rubbish at tips.
Ms McCarthy says it’s exciting to see the Sunshine Coast Regional Council working towards less waste. “These are the tangible initiatives ... It’s not just a motherhood statement about becoming sustainable – they’re looking at real ways to implement that sustainability. So having that symposium was a fantastic way forward.”
KADAG’s Mr Sheen says, “We’ve worked hard to get this. We’re not saying that we did it all ourselves, by any stretch of the imagination.
“But at least we put the signals out there, and this is what we’ve been trying to do for two years – and that’s to convince the council that there’s other ways of doing this other than landfill. And we’re quite confident now that there’s not going to be any more landfill on the Sunshine Coast.”
Related articles:
- Challenging times ahead for new council
- It’s time … for a real climate policy
- Omissions trading scheme
- Solutions for the future
- Electric cars will be the norm
Leave a Response
Entries(RSS)