January 23, 2023
Mayor Elvie Sandow and Mayor Brett Otto are in furious agreement … the SBRC’s new recycling program is benefiting both the Cherbourg community and the South Burnett region.
For Cherbourg, it means jobs. For the South Burnett, it means eliminating thousands of tonnes of waste each year from the region’s rapidly filling landfills.
Opening new landfills that meet the State Government’s statutory requirements is a very expensive process, and one the South Burnett Regional Council would like to delay for as long as possible.
South Burnett councillors and council staff recently joined Cherbourg councillors and staff at the Cherbourg Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) to inspect the recycling process.
They watched a JJ Richards truck bring in a load of recycling left in yellow bins in the Blackbutt area.
The truck deftly dumped the items in a pile inside the MRF facility.
From there, the items made their way up conveyors to the sorting level where the Cherbourg employees were stationed, ready to start sifting through the material.
The only hiccup identified so far is some people putting their recyclables inside plastic bags or using wheelie bin liners.
“That’s been the main issue,” Mayor Otto said.
“Please don’t use plastic bags or bin liners. Just put the stuff in the wheelie bins loose.”
Mayor Otto said the South Burnett would have found it very challenging to introduce recycling if Cherbourg Council had not been so advanced to take it on board.
“It has benefited the whole South Burnett.”
Mayor Sandow said the MRF had proven that even a small community such as Cherbourg could play a major role regionally.
One truck a day is now delivering recyclables to Cherbourg, and Economic Development Manager Sean Nicholson said the plant was handling it very well.
- The SBRC has invited residents to attend free Ready, Steady, Recycle! workshops on Thursday, February 23, at the Nanango Cultural Centre from 4:30pm-5:30pm, and on Friday, February 24, at Kingaroy Town Hall from 4:30pm-5:30pm.
Congratulations to the Cherbourg team. They have produced a simple explanation of the recycling process. There is no excuse for residents to complicate the process by contaminating the contents of these bins. One question – lids on plastic bottles for Containers for Change must be removed. I saw an article interstate where those lids are placed in 2 litre milk bottles. Is this possible here?
We have been told the lids on plastic bottles should be removed for Containers for Change because they can cause an issue during the sorting and baling process. However, in regards to the yellow-lidded bins, everything should just be placed inside loose.