A huge response from the Ipswich community will help shape ways for the City to become more sustainable with its resources and reduce the amount of waste our community sends to landfill.

The average Ipswich household sends about 1 tonne of waste to landfill each year. More than 70 per cent of those materials could be diverted from landfill today.

There were 351 contributions to the ‘Reducing Our Waste’ survey on Shape Your Ipswich in November 2020, as well as almost 860 comments on six Facebook posts.

The community input is valuable to council decision-making on how we divert half of what Ipswich sends to landfill by 2025 to meet ambitious State Government targets.

Council’s current strategy, the Materials Recovery Plan, was adopted in 2017 before national, international and local changes to the waste industry.

Key survey findings included:

More than half of respondents said they knew food scraps can go in the green waste bin in Ipswich, yet only a quarter said they actually used their green bin for food scraps at home.

More than 91 per cent supported re-introducing glass to the yellow lid recycling bin. 60 per cent were putting glass in the red lid bin for general waste.

A third of respondents donate most or all of their large items. This was the most popular preference.

There was a fairly even split between keeping the current free two-year large item kerbside collection (51.5 per cent) and switching to a low-cost on-demand service (48.5 per cent).

More than 60 per cent wanted to travel only 10km to a Recycling and Refuse Centre.

When building new Recycling and Refuse Centres, respondents wanted to ensure new centres were cost effective, minimised impact on the environment and did not cause odour issues for residential areas.

Read the full engagement report on the Reducing Our Waste page of Shape Your Ipswich.

The 'Reducing Our Waste' survey had 351 contributions on Shape Your Ipswich. Some key findings are below.

You can find the full engagement report in the Document Library below.