Much interest has come of Council’s mattress recycling program announced as part of last week’s budget.
If there is anything that climate change has taught us, it is the need to think outside the square when it comes to reducing our carbon footprint. As a council we have become pioneers at reducing waste.
Our Browns Plains Waste and Recycling Facility like all landfill sites can only take so much waste before it reaches its end of life.
Like our Loganholme Wastewater Treatment Plant, where it was nearing capacity, we’ve had to find other solutions to extend the life of the facility while also being sustainable.
It has been a running joke that the Browns Plains tip’s end of life has been projected as 10 years away from being full for the last 25 years.
This is because over time we’ve become better at recycling and the life keeps getting extended. But we are now getting to a point where it is no longer a joke.
Each year more than 10,000 mattresses are dumped in the City of Logan with each of those mattresses taking up nearly one cubic metre of landfill.
Mattresses are bulky items that are not easily donated to charities for reuse so as a council we needed to be forward-thinking about how we reduce the impact
It is true that we can’t just keep digging holes and making the landfill bigger is not an option.
In our commitment to climate change resilience, we wanted to find ways we can reduce those big items going into landfill.
The new mattress recycling process will harvest approximately 10kg of scrap metal from each mattress along with shredded fabric and foam which also have recycling potential – this will be done offsite, not by council.
Significantly, the recycling process ensures the landfill space needed for a discarded mattress is reduced by 98%.
Together with our mattress recycling we’ve also made a move to reduce the amount of polystyrene going into our landfill.
Like mattresses, polystyrene is a bulky item and a new recycling service at Browns Plains will use technology to compress it down and for use in many other plastic products.
As a council we are committed reducing our carbon footprint and will continue to lead the way with environmental projects and investment in green initiatives.
