HAWKESBURY Council and Hawkesbury District Agricultural Association will again team up to collect recycling at the Hawkesbury Show in 2018 and hope to resolve problems encountered in 2017.
Council’s Public Place Recycling Program started in 2017 at the Show, which attracts upwards of 50,000 visitors each year.
The program was not only to separate recyclable materials from general waste, but also to educate the public about what kinds of materials could be recycled.
The partnership was not without issues, as was heard at the Council meeting, after nearly half of all the recycling bins collected were emptied into a general waste compactor instead of a recycling one.
The Council business paper said 100 of 150 recycling bins and 30 of 150 on Saturday and Sunday of the show respectively were emptied into the general waste compactor.
The business paper also said some recycling bins were not placed next to regular waste bins, and many patrons were unable to tell the difference and placed general waste in the recycling bins.
Meanwhile, in the past, show vendors have incorrectly used the bins, leading to contamination, according to the Council business paper.
Council staff said lessons had been learned from the problems encountered in 2017, and measures had been put in place to avoid those.
Council’s Andrew Kearns there would be a recycling compactor on site at the show in 2018 to avoid that problem again.
Other measures will include ‘Recycling Rovers’ instructing people how to dispose of their recycling properly, ensuring waste and recycling bins are coupled and instructing show vendors on how to properly dispose of their waste.
At the same time, the Council business paper noted many show patrons were generally receptive to messages to encourage recycling, contamination in recycling bins was contaminated and 1156-kilograms of recycling was collected in 2017, as opposed to 880-kilograms in 2016.
Council will also investigate having a reverse vending machine at the premise so patrons can collect their 10 cent refund under the state government’s new container deposit scheme.
Liberal councillor Nathan Zamprogno said despite the issues, this was a good program.
“Everybody should be in favour of recycling,” he said.
Independent councillor Peter Reynolds said it would be good to see the initiative extended to smaller events in the Hawkesbury as well.
Council will receive funding from the Environmental Protection Agency to run the program.
The motion to run the program was adopted unanimously.