Assessing our recycling

Published: 27 Jun 2019

Mackay Regional Council will see first-hand this week how residents' recycling efforts are going.

Contractor Envirocom will be conducting council’s bi-annual waste stream assessment at the Materials Recovery Facility today (Thursday, June 27) and tomorrow (Friday, June 28).

The information collected helps inform council’s Waste Management Strategy and their education program.

The last assessment, in February, showed there was an increase of 6.7 per cent in contamination from the previous five years.

The main contaminates found were –

  • Food/kitchen waste
  • Plastic bags
  • Polystyrene
  • Green waste

Council believes the increase in contamination is due to the removal of recyclable cans and bottles for the Container Refund Scheme (CRS), resulting in the percentage of contaminates to recyclable material increasing.

Residents are encouraged to only put the following items in their yellow-lidded bin:

  • Paper, cardboard, newspapers, magazines and advertising material
  • Plastic bottles and containers numbered 1 to 6
  • Aluminium and steel cans and aerosols
  • Glass bottles and jars
  • Milk and juice cartons.

Council’s Materials Recovery Facility is a state-of-the-art recycling facility that sent over 13,000 tonnes of recycled material to market last year.

For more tips on recycling visit mackay.qld.gov.au/recycleright.