Waste Strategy and what do my waste charges cover?

The QPRC Waste Strategy was adopted by Council in June 2021.

The Strategy has been prepared to provide an approach for waste and resource management in the LGA which maximises landfill diversion and resource recovery. One of the key components of this strategy is how we can serve and assist both the community and businesses to improve their waste management practices.

Download the Waste Strategy here(PDF, 4MB).

What do the waste charges cover?

The General Waste Charge covers the following major components:

Handling, transport and payment of gate fees for things accepted at the waste facility for free

Residents are encouraged to sort their waste as you won’t be charged at the gate for dropping recyclables at the facility. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t cost the ratepayer any money. Council is charged more than $100 per tonne to deliver commingled recyclables to the recycling facility and this doesn’t include the cost to load and transport the materials. Every other material that is accepted without charging a gate fee at the facility also has costs to process.

Operating costs for the facilities

This includes staff wages, plant and equipment costs, insurances and maintenance. Even if zero waste was taken to the facilities, there would still be costs to operate and maintain the facility. Staff are required to safely managed waste facilities and ensure the environment is protected.

Management of legacy landfills

All the “free” disposal of waste in years past was actually just a deferred cost. To protect the environment, all our old landfills need to be capped. Each of these capping projects is expected to cost more than $1.5m each. These projects include vast quantities of materials to create a capping layer that prevents the release of landfill gases and the entry of water into the waste.

Other Costs

In addition to these, the General Waste Charge also pays for illegal dumping management, waste education, roadside litter collection and depreciation.

Gate Fees

The gate fee covers the cost of disposing of non-recyclable materials.

Domestic Waste Management

Those ratepayers who receive a kerbside collection pay the domestic waste management charge in addition to the General Waste Charge. More information about domestic waste management charge, including what can go in your red, green and yellow lidded bins is available here. Residents that do not have a kerbside waste collection do not contribute towards the funding of kerbside waste collections.

Kerbside Bin Audit Report 2022

Download the 2022 Bin Audit Report(PDF, 3MB)

Kerbside Bin Audit Report 2018

Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council engaged EC Sustainable Pty Ltd (EC Sustainable) to conduct a Council-wide audit of the kerbside residential bins, including all bin systems: residual waste, recycling, and organics. The audit was conducted in summer 2018, during February.

Council conducted this audit to measure the current performance of the various bin systems:

  • 3-bin system: waste, recycling and organics:
    • Garden Organics (GO) in Oueanbeyan and Googong.
    • Food and Garden Organics (FOGO) in Braidwood, Bungendore and Captains Flat.
  • 2-bin system: waste and recycling.
  • 1 bin system: recycling only.

The audit was conducted to update its characterisation of bin streams, plan for future services and provide additional data for 'eligible containers' in the Container Deposit Scheme (CDS). This was the first audit conducted of the amalgamated Councils of Queanbeyan and Palerang. It was also the first audit since the introduction of the CDS, also known as Return and Earn, which commenced on 1 December 2017.

This audit was generally designed to conform to the NSW residential waste auditing guidelines known as the "NSW EPA (previous OEH) Guidelines" or the "Guidelines for Conducting Household Kerbside Residual Waste, Recycling and Garden Organics Audits in NSW Local Government Areas" (NSW EPA, 2008) and "Addendum 2010" (NSW EPA, 2010).

This involved:

  • A target sample size of 264 households.
  • Matched waste and recycling bins sampled in 2-bin system areas. This means the pair of waste and recycling bins were collected from the same household that presented both streams. For 3-bin system areas, the organics bin was targeted at the same households in the alternative collection week of the collection fortnight cycle.
  • A visual survey of the bins at the kerbside prior to collection.
  • Individual household bag collection method of the bin contents inspected.
  • Approximately 90 material sorting categories, the NSW EPA Guidelines, plus CDS.
  • Detailed data analysis as provided in this report.

The objective of this audit was to provide the data indicators for: generation rate by weight when a bin is presented; generation rate by volume; unrecovered resources in the waste bin; contamination rate; resource recovery rate; diversion rate; and eligible CDS containers. It also provided a comparison with the previous audit years.

Here is a full copy of the Household Kerbside Bin System Audit 2018(PDF, 2MB)

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