NWQ Regional Waste Management Plan
Project update at 13 December 2023
The NWQ Regional Waste Management Plan (RWMP), funded by the Department of Environment and Science (DES), was finalised in mid-2023 with public release yet to be confirmed.
Research and development of the plan started in July 2022 and involved site visits and meeting with officers across our councils, and workshops with senior members of council and elected members.
The RWMP provides valuable region-wide insight into current waste management and challenges and identifies opportunities and pathways for implementation.
Ahead of the official release, NWQROC is well engaged in seeking funding through DES for the engagement of a regional coordinator to support the implementation of this plan.
About the project
In July 2022, work commenced on the development of the NWQ Regional Waste Management Plan (RWMP). The project was funded by the Department of Environment and Science (DES) and part Queensland’s Waste Management Strategy supporting a region-wide approach to managing waste infrastructure. The Plan aims to support the region’s progress towards government resource recovery targets and a circular economy.
Researching and developing the RWMP involved site visits and interviews with officers of member Councils. This was followed by a series of workshops with both senior council managers and elected members of the NWQROC to initially define current issues and challenges, then identified opportunities, refine, and select preferred options, and to identify a pathway for implementation.
The Plan:
Identifies action required over 10 years in two five-year periods
Identifies capital costs and annual operational costs to implement
Provides a Roadmap prioritising implementation actions, and
Provides a governance process to oversee the implementation.
Why a plan?
NWQ faces immense challenges, with just 31,000 people in 22 discrete communities in an area of 350,000 km2 or 20% of the Queensland landmass.
However, transformative actions taken toward future management of waste in the region will assist in meeting the state government’s ambitious targets by 2050 to:
reduce household waste by 25%
achieve 75% recovery across all waste streams
90% of all waste is recovered and not landfilled.
What now?
The NWQ RWMP was finalised in mid-2023 with the official release yet to be confirmed.
Ahead of the official release, NWQROC is well engaged in seeking funding from DES to establish a Regional Support Resource Coordinator function. This role will provide executive leadership and secretariate support to the officer level Working Group, reporting to the NWQROC on Plan implementation, financial management, project management and regional collaboration.
Notes on Plan’s regional scope:
The NWQ RWMP includes councils of Burke, Carpentaria, Cloncurry, Croydon, Etheridge, Flinders, McKinlay, Mount Isa and Richmond.
While Doomadgee ASC is a member of NWQROC, Council is also part of the First Nations Southern Gulf RWMP for this project, along with Mornington Shire Council and Kowanyama ASC, addressing the priorities and indicators documented in the First Nations Respecting Country Waste Strategy. The councils have been consulted during the development of this RWMP and agreement reached for the first stage to refine their own local waste reduction and resource-recovery RWMP which would then be acknowledged in the implementation of the NWQ RWMP.