A TRIAL to recycle plastic bags has become a permanent fixture in Armidale and makes the shire one of the few municipalities in Australia to take on the landfill burden.
According to Armidale Dumaresq Council’s waste and drainage superintendent Craig Smith, millions of plastic bags are dumped in landfills across Australia every day.
“They are a real problem for landfill because they don’t break down and they often blow away when they are dumped out of the trucks,” Mr Smith said.
“Being able to recycle them takes away a big burden on the landfill.”
Mr Smith said many members of the Armidale community still didn’t realise that plastic bags could be recycled.
“All you have to do is put your bags inside one plastic bag and place it in your plastics recycling tub for collection,” he said.
“The bags are sorted and they then get sent away to be broken down and made into more plastic bags for future use.”
The scheme is one of two major projects of which Mr Msith is particularly proud.
The other is the City 2 Soil program, which involves recycling Armidale’s green waste and selling it back to the public.
“The success of City 2 Soil has been incredible,” Mr Smith said.
“Not only are we stopping 4000 tonnes of green waste from going to landfill each year, but we are turning it into compost or wood chips and selling it back to the public.”
At one stage the compost was so popular that it was sold out.
Large companies from the coast had also inquired about getting their hands on the city’s compost, Mr Smith said.
“Many people don’t realise that green waste emits a lot of gases into the atmosphere and isn’t suitable for landfill, so for us to recycle that makes a massive difference,” he said.
