Dear resident,
We are drowning in waste!
And unless governments at all levels, industry leaders and manufacturers begin to seriously tackle this issue, we will be left sinking under the waste wave.
That’s not an exaggeration, it’s a reality with more than half of Sydney’s household and commercial waste going to landfill.
Sydney’s waste is growing by somewhere in the order of 400,000 tonnes every year. And by 2040, residents will be generating around 3.2 million tonnes a year.
Unless we take urgent action in the next decade our red bin waste will have nowhere to go.
The areas of most concern are waste management and lack of infrastructure to process the City’s waste. More and more waste, landfill sites reaching capacity, an increase in the Waste Levy and valuable resources which can be recycled going into landfill.
Council is committed to continuing to tackle this issue. We’re working with other councils to reduce waste, improve environmental outcomes where waste has to be processed, influence policies and find solutions for the residue that is left.
I’ll be urging the NSW Government to invest the revenue they collect from the waste levy into building waste infrastructure and educating communities on ways to reduce waste.
The Federal Government also needs to play their part by banning materials that cannot be recycled or recovered in Australia.
There’s no time to waste and we must all do what we can to address this issue before we drown.
Yours sincerely,
Clr Bilal El-Hayek
MAYOR
