Our waste management services are guided by the Qld Waste Reduction and Recycling Act 2011 and the Qld Waste Management Strategy 2019. These rules help reduce waste, encourage recycling, and make sure waste is handled properly. To encourage this, the Queensland Government introduced a waste levy (or fee) in 2019 charging $94 per tonne for anything that goes to landfill. This helps divert waste away from landfill, prolonging the life of the landfill and encouraging better recycling behaviours.

Currently, Gladstone Region residents can take their green organic waste (like grass clippings and branches) to Council waste facilities. It’s important to not put green organics in your general waste or yellow recycling bins as they are a resource that is processed into mulch and offered back to the community for free at various times of the year, in addition to avoiding waste levy costs. In the yellow recycling bin, green organics contaminate the items, making it harder to recycle.

Managing and processing green organic waste costs money to ensure that it does not go to landfill. In 2023/24, Council managed 16,000 tonnes with costs over $530,000 for transport ($100,000) and grinding ($430,000). Sending 16,000 tonnes of green organic waste to landfill as an alternative would cost the community over $1.5 million dollars annually just in waste levy fees, in addition to transport and landfill costs. In 2023/24, there were 58,000 free domestic green organic waste drop-offs. Currently, only commercial customers pay a fee which generates approximately $100,000 per year, from 9,000 commercial transactions.

To help cover rising costs, the 2024/25 Budget has introduced a $5 fee for green organic waste dropoff for customers who utilise this service. This new fee won’t cover all costs but will help close the gap. The new fee aims to balance the costs, is user-pays based, while also providing processed mulch that will still be free for domestic customers at certain sites.

Council also encourages residents to save, sort and recycle to avoid additional costs. To promote recycling opportunities in the region, several other services are still free, and users will not be charged to present up to 15 other items at Council’s Waste Facilities. There are links to specialised recycling services which can be found on our website. Everything that is placed in the yellow recycling bin is recovered, transported and processed at a Materials Recovery Facility located on the Sunshine Coast.

Green organic waste is a challenge for Central Queensland Councils, including Gladstone. To address this, a Regional Waste Management Plan has been developed and a possible future solution is the introduction of a third bin for green organic waste and the introduction of composting processing to create a higher quality product. Council completed an initial organics business case in 2022 with community consultation and surmised that an additional bin will help reduce waste going into landfill while retaining green organics as a resource. A future decision regarding this service is being progressed through collaborative work as part of the Regional Waste Management Plan supported by the Qld State Government.

The Queensland Waste Levy is a fee introduced in 2019 to encourage recycling and reduce waste going to landfill. Currently, the levy is set at $94 per tonne for anything that ends up in landfill. And will increase with AIR (Annual Indexation Rate) annually. The levy is part of the state waste strategy to encourage Queenslanders to reduce, reuse and recycle, only sending waste to landfill if it cannot be recovered.  

The waste levy aims to: 

• Reduce the amount of waste going to landfill 
• Encourage waste avoidance 
• Provide a source of funding to enable better resource recovery practices 
• Provide certainty and security of feedstocks for advanced technology 
• Facilitate industry investment in resource recovery infrastructure. 

The amount of waste that we generate in Queensland is increasing faster than our population. On top of this, we are currently only recycling 45 per cent of the waste that we produce, sending the rest (nearly 6 million tonnes in 2017-18) to landfill.  

While the levy generates revenue, this is largely directed toward resource recovery initiatives and supporting the infrastructure needed for waste reduction strategies. Councils typically recover the costs associated with capping and rehabilitating landfill sites through their own fees and charges, separate from the levy itself. 

Queensland was the only Australian State without a waste levy. We are also sending more than half of our waste to landfill in Queensland. The levy is about reducing waste to landfill and increasing recycling and resource recovery. Find out more.

• Waste received as part of charity donations that cannot practicably be re-used, recycled or sold 
• Litter and illegally dumped waste which is collected as part of an organised community clean up activity 
• Earth contaminated with a hazardous contaminant from land listed on the environmental management register or contaminated land register 
• Waste necessary for the operation of the leviable waste disposal site (subject to approval) such as for building infrastructure, temporary or daily cover, progressive or final capping, batter construction, profiling and site rehabilitation. 

All waste going to landfill in Queensland will incur the relevant levy rate unless the waste is both generated and disposed of in the non-levy zone. There are exemptions for some specific types of waste, such as waste that results from a declared disaster and for operational uses at a landfill.

Find more information about the Queensland Waste Levy and waste management rules.