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When Townsville City Council decided years ago to introduce a recycling system,  outlying suburbs such as Paluma and Alligator Creek were not included as it was considered that community support in these areas was not sufficient to warrant their trucks to travel that far.

The Paluma Environmental Education Centre, therefore, decided to set up and incorporate a recycling system into their environmental education curriculum, organizing a recycling station at the Catholic Education Centre (Gumbaroo) with yellow-lidded bins provided by the Townsville City Council. A council truck would travel to Paluma to empty these eight bins, with the cost for this service being charged to PEEC. Over the years the charge for this service has risen annually and last stood at $400, making it very expensive with council indicating another increase on the way. This also caused occasions where all the bins were full and recyclables were left on the ground.

Part-time resident, Wilfred Karnoll volunteered in mid 2022 to transport any full bins to and empty them at the council-operated recycling depot at the Stuart dump free of charge on his way home to his other residence at Alligator Creek. As the bins are the large 300 liter type they have to be emptied manually at the site and the recycled material has to be placed into the standard 200liter yellow lid bins and paper/cardboard containers. The Paluma bins are regularly monitored to ensure there is always space available, all bins full to overflowing should therefore be a thing of the past. He’s asking all residents to read and adhere to the list of Do’s and Don’t’s outlined below to make his job as easy as possible.

DO’S and DON’T’S for PALUMA RECYCLING

1. All recyclables are to be placed into bins loose, not bagged or in cartons.
2. Fill bins completely in order from left to right, that way we don’t end up with 8 bins half full.
3. Do not overfill bins, lids have to sit flat to keep rain out, any moisture in the bins causes soggy paper/cardboard, as well as mould, smell and rust.
4. All food containers must be rinsed out and drained of any liquid.
5. All lids must be removed from all bottles and plastic containers and discarded, as they are considered a contaminant.
6. Place glass bottles into the bins gently, if dropped from height they may break any glass containers already in the bins.
7. Paper should be a minimum size of A5, (half the size of a standard A4) and should be flat, not scrunched up. No small arts and crafts remnants, please.
8. All cartons must be flattened by undoing the glued flaps at top and bottom or by removing the sticky tape, don’t try to flatten them by crushing them, as it doesn’t work and only creates a bulky mess.
9. Any items smaller than a credit card or fist should not be recycled as they have very little recycling value but create a lot of extra work.

Happy recycling!