The Town is a member of the
Mindarie Regional Council (together with the Cities of Perth, Joondalup, Wanneroo, Stirling and the Town’s of Victoria Park and Cambridge).
The Mindarie Regional Council (MRC) region currently produces over 300,000 tonnes of waste per annum.
In 2007/2008 about 16,900 tonnes of waste material was collected in the Town and based on a population of 26,904 persons, this equates to approximately 600kg of waste per person or 930kg per rateable property. In addition to the waste collected, 2,235.45 tonnes was recycled.
The services provided by the Town to collect the above waste/recycling volumes, is as follows:
1. Putrescible Waste Collection: Residential and commercial putrescible waste is collected weekly* by the Town’s day labour work force. Ratable properties/businesses are provided with at least one 240 litre Mobile Garbage Bin (MGBs).
*Businesses are supplied bins according to their entitlement in the Council Policy, residential houses and units are supplied with/entitled to one MGB per property (with the exception of one bedroom units which are supplied with/entitled to a 1/2 standard MGB per property).
2. Recycling: Residential properties are provided with/entitled to a 240 litre mobile recycling bin (MRB) (with the exception of one bedroom units which are supplied with/entitled to a 1/2 standard MRB per property).
3. Non-rated properties can be provided with a waste or recycling collection service for a fee.
4. Bulk Verge Collections: Residential properties are provided with two (2) ‘Greens’ & one (1) ‘General Junk’ bulk verge collection per financial year collected by contract.
5. Other: In addition, residents are given the opportunity to purchase subsidised ‘Worm farms’ and ‘Compost bins’ and attend free workshops on worm farming.
The Western Australian State Government has established a Waste Management Board which is an ‘advisory body’ responsible for developing policy in collaboration with the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC).
The Board’s vision is ‘TOWARDS ZERO WASTE’ in Western Australia and that this be achieved by:
- Prevention: Avoid the creation of waste
- Recovery: Effectively Recover, re-treat and re-use all wastes
- Disposal: Responsibly Manage waste into the environment
The State Government initiatives towards achieving the ‘zero waste’ vision are as follows:
- The development of ‘Zero Waste Plans’ for Local Governments
- Resource Recovery Rebate Scheme
- Waste Avoidance and Resource Recover Bill 2006
- Waste Avoidance and Resource Recover ‘Levy’ Bill 2006
- Extended producer Responsibility
- Container Deposit System (similar to South Australia)
As mentioned above, the waste produced in the Town equates to about 0.6 tonnes or 600kg per person per annum. More than half of this waste generated can be sorted at the home to be recycled and/or diverted to compost.
To facilitate the reduction of the waste generated, a holistic approach needs to be taken including individuals taking part in sorting their waste at their homes to reduce the amount going to landfill, extender producer responsibility (EPR), community education and awareness raising and the development and implementation of a Waste Management Strategy commensurate with these aims.
The reasons for the need to effectively re-cover, re-treat and re-use all wastes are as follows:
- Landfill Site (Tamala Park) has limited life
- Difficult to locate new landfill sites on Perth Coastal Plain
- Creation of leachate/methane from organics in landfill create polluted ground water and greenhouse gases – methane etc
- Removal of hazardous materials from the Waste Stream
- Recovery of valuable ‘finite’ resources e.g. plastics (made from fossil fuels), paper (reduce the degradation of forests), metals and aluminium (more energy efficient to make new products from recycled materials).
The recovery of the resource (waste) must include:
- Diversion of organic waste from landfill and conversion into high quality compost, which is best done at home or alternatively in a Resource Recovery Facility (RRF)
- Improved home separation of recycling and kerbside collection to separate recyclable materials from the waste stream such as plastic, paper, glass and aluminium and metals
- Removal of hazardous materials from the Waste Stream via special drop off centres or removed from the Waste Stream at a Resource Recovery facility (RRF)
- Extended producer Responsibility e.g. Container Deposit Legislation (CDL).
The MRC is planning to construct Stage 1 of an RRF for the region (to be located in Neerabup (East Wanneroo). The current proposal for Stage 1 of the RRF is to process 100,000 tonnes of waste per annum, with about 70,000 tonnes to be recovered (compost created) and metals recycled. The MRC proposes to progressively construct an additional two (2) RRFs (Stages 2 and 3) over the next 10 or so years.
When all three (3) Stages of the RRF have been completed and member Council’s have introduced improved ‘Kerbside Recycling’, it is envisaged that only minimal waste (residual) will be disposed of in landfill (TOWARDS ZERO WASTE).
To responsibly manage waste into the environment, measures must be introduced as part of a Waste Management Strategy to manage and divert hazardous waste from the waste stream. This can be achieved by:
- Education and awareness raising
- Introducing special hazardous waste collections and/drop off centres
- Diversion from landfill by being separated at the RRF.
The Town’s Waste Management Service in 2005/2006 cost about $1.95m. This was based on cost for landfill at MRC landfill site at Tamala Park of $43 per tonne. (This has now increased to over $47 per tonne.)
It has been calculated that when Stage 1 of the RRF is operational, the cost of putrescible waste per tonne will increase to well over $100 per tonne.
Note: When RRF is operational, every tonne of waste not going to the RRF (or Tamala Park), through diversion of organics at home and separation of recycling, will save the Town over $100/tonne.
An improved ‘Kerbside’ Recycling Service was introduced in September 2008 using an MRB and the participation rate has increased. With the new yellow lid recycling service the Town will now divert around 4,500 tonnes - which is twice as much as the previous black crate recycling system resulted in.
An improved recycling service has resulted in the following benefits:
- Larger receptacle (increased recycling capacity)
- Increased tonnages diverted from landfill
- Increased participation
- Decrease in ‘putrescible’ waste tonnages
- Saving in disposal costs which compensates for the increased recycling costs
- Recovery/reuse of finite resources which would otherwise have gone to landfill
- Less energy required to reprocess recycled materials, resulting in fewer greenhouse gases produced and less water required, in the case of paper reprocessing
- Prolong the life of the landfill therefore saving transport costs, time and the cost of finding a new landfill site (away from the Coastal Plain).
The Town's kerbside recycling service is in place to divert parts of the waste stream (including materials that have value for sale or re-sue such as aluminium, steel cans, old newspapers, glass and plastics) from ending up in landfill. However, while it is important to continue to recover these items, it is also extremely important to address the nutrient loading problem of the organic material going to the landfill.
There is an immediate need to reduce these impacts wherever possible. Most of the "negative effects" result from the organic materials that are buried in landfills. Examples of organic ‘nasties’ are green waste from gardens and food scraps from the kitchen. These can cause serious problems for water supplies, rivers and lakes. They also create large amounts of methane, which is a greenhouse gas that is about 2.3 times worse for the environment than carbon dioxide.
While there are now better engineered landfills to reduce groundwater contamination and some methane gas produced is captured and used for energy generation, in order to reduce the "negative effects" there is still an urgent need to reduce the amount of waste buried in landfills.
The Tamala Park landfill has a limited life span and no new sanitary landfill sites are encouraged to be located on the Perth Coastal Plain. Therefore, future sites will need to be located further inland, resulting in long haul distances. It is essential to reduce the waste to landfill for the obvious environmental benefits and to prolong the life of Tamala Park given that there will, at least in the short to medium term, still be a requirement to landfill the residual portion of the waste stream from the resource recovery process.
The RRF facility is being planned to address these issues and is in line with the guiding principles and 'vision' of the Waste Management Board of towards zero waste in Western Australia and the:
- Prevention - To avoid the creation of waste
- Recovery - To effectively recover, retreat and reuse all wastes and
- Disposal - To responsibly manage waste into the environment.
An improved kerbside recycling collection service has been introduced to help achieve this 'vision'. The new service will still collect recyclables on a fortnightly basis.
Waste Disposal/processing costs will continue to increase and this together with an improved recycling service will result in a higher cost of delivering a sustainable Waste Service however the benefit to the environment will far exceed the overall small cost increase per household.