Towards Zero Waste

During 2023, an independent contractor audited 20 Council-staffed facilities, Tweed Holiday Parks and a selection of public place bins. The audit acted as a useful baseline to measure Council’s progress on its towards zero waste goals.

The audit showed Council has some encouraging operational practices in place to promote circularity and reduce waste, for example through reuse of road materials, parks and gardens green waste and the responsible disposal of coolants, batteries and recycling scrap metals. However, it also highlighted that there is still some distance to travel in management of everyday waste, including reducing single use materials and decreasing contamination in recycling and organic waste bins.

The recommendations of this audit will inform priorities for internal action, with a follow up audit to be completed in 2025.

In 2023, Council engaged Local Government Procurement (LGP) to run 2 sustainable procurement workshops with key purchasers across all service areas of Council. Together, these workshops prioritised sustainability factors in main spending categories, as well as assessment criteria for evaluating tender responses.

In 2024, Council will be engaging with key suppliers and stakeholders to understand their progress towards the supply of sustainable products and services and where the greatest opportunities lie to balance the needs of people, planet and profit in the Tweed.

Find out more about Council’s sustainable operations.

While the Tweed actively complies with NSW bans on single use plastics, we recognise there is a long way to go in changing behaviour to avoid all single use materials, instead encouraging reusable products that create less waste to landfill and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We know that single use foodware can be convenient! But even fibre-based materials such as paper cups, sugar cane plates and bamboo foodware add to landfill and many may contain harmful PFAS chemicals.

Reminder: Fibre-based materials such as serviettes, cardboard and paper plates cannot go in green-lid organics bins. Read more.

Did you know?

• Recycling one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a computer for 25 minutes.
• Recycling one tonne of paper saves 31,780 litres of water.
• 50,000 takeaway coffee cups are thrown out every 30 minutes.
• If we reduced takeaway coffee cups by 30%:
  • businesses would save $104 million
  • 1,650 tonnes of plastic would be avoided
  • 11,250 tonnes of timber would be saved.

Council is exploring how it can influence behaviours to encourage a reduction in single-use materials in the following areas:

1. Staff use – reducing the use of disposable cups and plates.
2. Council facilities – equipping sites with reusable catering supplies.
3. Events held in Council facilities – ensuring reusables and cleaning facilities are available.
4. Council sponsored events – working with event coordinators on waste management plans.
5. Events or activities on Council-leased spaces – encouraging leaseholders to progessively improve waste management practices and avoid single use where possible.

If you’re running an event and want to reduce your single-use materials, these resources may help:

• Tweed’s single-use alternatives guide(PDF, 65KB)
• Hosting and promoting events in the Tweed

From reusing road materials and natural features in our parks and gardens, Council is already implementing circular thinking to its everyday operations. As we document and celebrate these stories, we’ll share them here.

Australians throw out approximately 300 kilotonnes of clothing every year, with most unwanted items ending up in landfill. While some items are recovered and resold through second hand and charity shops, domestic violence support and animal shelters, this is only a small fraction. Council is investigating alternatives for clothing and textile recovery in 2024. 

To reduce textile and clothing waste, there are 3 primary strategies:

Find out what you can do to avoid, reuse, reduce and recycle your clothing waste.