Questions around the future of Bega Valley's waste issues, recycling capability and the number of tips that will remain open will be returned to council to discuss at the end of November after a series of community information sessions run by council's waste staff.
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Unfortunately though some of those community information sessions were not as well attended as council would have hoped with Cobargo the most popular at 15 people, Bega 10 and Eden no one attending.
Whatever the outcome though from the council meeting at the end of November, council staff will be progressing a development application for the extension of the current Central Waste Facility at Wolumla which will be expanded to the north.
Waste project manager Kimberley Rushbrook said that if council didn't get approval for the expansion it would be in trouble.
Landfill is very expensive. Council has spent $10.5m building holes and capping them in the last seven years.
- Waste project manager at BVSC Kimberley Rushbrook
Landfill cells are filling up faster than expected and council now wants to see greater recycling and reuse.
"Landfill is very expensive. Council has spent $10.5m building holes and capping them in the last seven years," Ms Rushbrook said.
In 2019 more than 21,000 tonnes of material went into Bega Valley landfill. It costs a significant amount to manage and at the current rate in 15 years the shire will run out of landfill space.
But Ms Rushbrook said that for every one person involved in landfill, there could be 9.2 jobs if more was recycled.
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Waste services manager Alan Gundrill said waste had become a resource and that up to 90 per cent of what was going into landfill was recoverable. He said we need to change the way we think about waste.
"There's still a huge amount of cardboard going into landfill as well as bricks, timber and concrete," he said.
"Timber can be processed, bricks can be washed and reused and concrete crushed," he said.
He said they had started collecting bricks, concrete and gyprock in bins at Eden and want to build the infrastructure to deal with the waste.
Once we have that good stream of material we want to encourage business to come in and take the recycled material to sell on.
- Waste services manager at BVSC Alan Gundrill
"We can't invest in processing until there's a stream of supply, initially it's about collecting the material," Mr Gundrill said.
But they will not be able to invest at every site and so plan to concentrate waste activities at Bermagui, the Central Waste Facility at Wolumla and at Eden.
"Once we have that good stream of material we want to encourage business to come in and take the recycled material to sell on," Mr Gundrill added.
The waste team is hoping to get more businesses involved in FOGO (Food Organics and Garden Organics) which in turn will put more pressure on the Merimbula facility where FOGO is turned into compost.
They plan to move FOGO to Wolumla where there is more room, but have said the Merimbula facility will remain open until the Central Waste Facility is further developed because Merimbula is "by far the busiest site".
Also more than 1100 rural residents will get a new kerbside or bin bank collection service. The kerbside collection will be in areas the waste truck can access but does not currently. The bin banks are for residents located in areas where the truck is unable to drive. Lockable bin banks will be located as close as possible to a group of properties.
The new service will mean that rural residents will not longer have to take all their rubbish to transfer stations and by supplying yellow recycling bins as well will reduce the amount going to landfill.
