The Town of Kwinana is urging residents to take recycling more seriously after a recent audit showed huge losses as a result of incorrect recycling practices.
The audit of household bins showed that over 30% of items placed in the regular green top bin were recyclable materials, a statistic which comes at a hefty cost to the council and the community.
Kwinana Mayor Carol Adams said incorrect recycling cost the Kwinana community close to $40,000 a year. “This doesn’t even take into account the funds that could be recovered through reusing materials for other purposes so in reality the figure would be much higher,” she said.
Medina Local Maya Lyon said she considered recycling part of everyday life now but acknowledged a lot of the time it came down to not knowing what went where.
“It’s hard when you’re unsure of which bin is right or have a mixed bag of rubbish,” Ms Lyon said.
“But you just have to keep at it and remember your responsibility to the environment; it’s ridiculous to think we can all just leave it up to the tip to work out. It’s costing us all thousands of dollars by not doing our part and recycling.”
It is predicted that over only the next few years, as the population of Kwinana booms, household waste and recycling levels will increase by 20% with associated costs rising accordingly.
Kwinana Mayor Carol Adams said there was a mounting need to recycle correctly as Kwinana and the rest of Australia moved towards the goal of zero waste to landfill. Recycling will remain a prominent retention method for years to come but would require “a more focused and serious approach by both local governments and each individual resident”, she said.
“I encourage every resident to take recycling more seriously and to seek clarification on materials they’re confused about. If everyone makes a considerable effort to improve their recycling habits we can put a serious dent in our losses as a community, both environmental and economical.”
The waste audit showed the most incorrectly disposed of materials were glass and paper, both recyclable resources. Plastic and cardboard, also able to be recycled, were common in regular green top waste bins as well.
Other nearby councils have already began trialing weekly recycling pickups and larger recycling bins and Mayor Adams said the Town of Kwinana looked forward to seeing the results of these trials and was hopeful they would be effective in stimulating recycling efforts.
“I applaud our partners in local government for leading the way in improving local recycling systems.”