Waste Management

Landfill

Some useable household items such as crockery, glassware and clothing can be reused, particularly by those less fortunate. Please consider taking these items to Revive, the Women’s Shelter or Red Cross to be recycled.

For fees and charges, click here.

We've teamed up with Revive to create a Recycling Guideline that you can download and stick to your fridge. 

Opening Hours

Kununurra Landfill

Old Darwin Road, Kununurra

Contact: 08 9168 1138

Operating Hours

Wyndham Landfill

1349 Great Northern Highway, Wyndham

Recycling

There are many ways in which residents can participate in recycling.

Currently, residents are being encouraged to recycle mobile phones, aluminium cans, oil, vehicle batteries, garden and food waste, chemical drums, steel, printer cartridges, clothes and other household items.

Mulching at the Landfill Site is expected to produce more
than 100 cubic metres of mulch for use on Shire gardens.

MobileMuster

Did you know:

• It's estimated there are over 22 million unwanted mobiles in homes around Australia.
• Over 90% of the materials in mobile phones, batteries and chargers can be recycled.
• Mobile phones are not biodegradable and contain substances that can potentially harm the environment if not handled correctly at the end of a phone's useful life.

MobileMuster started in late 1998  and aims is to keep old mobiles out of landfill and to recycle them in a safe, secure and ethical way. 

MobileMuster will accept:

• Mobile phone handsets
• Mobile phone batteries of all kinds
• Mobile phone chargers and accessories (e.g. ear pieces, car kits, cases)
• Display mobile phones

MobileMuster will not accept:

• Non-mobile phone batteries (e.g. alkaline)
• Home phones, pagers, MP3 players, PDA’s with no phone function.
• Any other non-mobile electric components or devices.

The Shire is a registered collection point for MobileMuster and has collection boxes at both the Kununurra and Wyndham administration offices.

TechCollect

Under the NTCRS only the following products CAN be dropped-off for free recycling at a TechCollect service location;

• Personal and laptop computers and all cables
• Tablets, notebooks and palmtops
• Computer monitors and parts (e.g. internal hard drives and CD drives)
• Computer peripherals and accessories (e.g. mice, keyboards, web cameras, USBs)
• Printers, faxes, scanners and multi-functional devices
• All televisions

Before you drop off your computer hard drive or external storage unit such as a USB drive to TechCollect, it is your responsibility to protect your personal information by securely and permanently wiping the data on your device first.

The recycling process does not include the deletion of data and TechCollect cannot provide any guarantee on the safety of any data not wiped from any devices dropped off for recycling. Further information on how to wipe data from your PC or laptop can be found below.

Once dropped off your products and any data on them cannot be retrieved as they are dismantled and broken down for recycling.

*The service is free to the general public and small businesses only.

Rubbish Collection

The Shire provides a weekly rubbish collection service to residents and commercial operators.

Waste Management Strategy

 The Shire recently undertook an extensive review of its current waste management practices and has developed a Strategic Waste Management Strategy that is currently in the process of being implemented.

Why review the current waste management practices?

The review came about after the State Government’s Department of Environment and Regulation (DER) inspections revealed significant environmental issues within both the Kununurra and Wyndham landfill sites.

The Shire had been advised by the DER that the current waste management practices required significant improvements before the existing Kununurra Landfill’s Environmental Protection Licence expires in 2016.

What were the findings from the review?

The Shire identified the need to implement extensive
improvements to the landfill sites to:

• Minimise the environmental risk to acceptable levels;
• Comply with State Government regulations;
• Meet industry operational requirements;
• Provide an appropriate workplace for staff; and
• Become economically sustainable.

These measures will ensure that the Shire can continue to provide waste services to the community well into the future.

What are the reasons behind the issues with the existing landfill sites?

Due to limited resources, the Shire’s landfill sites have been poorly operated and managed over the past few decades which resulted in unacceptable impacts to the local environment. The environmental impacts were caused by numerous activities including:

• No control over the type of wastes delivered to the landfill;
• Regular fires occurring within the landfill (and no access to a fire truck on-site);
• No site rehabilitation;
• Poor documentation of delivered waste; and
• Failure to comply with licence conditions as set by DER.

In addition to this, the Shire discovered that the current waste management fees and charges were well below both breakeven cost and industry benchmark. The result of this is that the Shire (funded via ratepayers) is currently subsiding waste disposal from the local commercial /
industrial industry.

Why does the Shire need to change it's waste management practices?

Non-compliance with the DER will result in significant (up to $25,000 per time) fines being issued to the Shire and it is unlikely that the Shire’s licence will be renewed to operate the landfills. This would mean that all waste produced in the Shire would need to be transported to either Halls Creek or Darwin at a significant cost to waste producers (domestic and commercial).

In addition to this, without refining and increasing waste management fees and charges, the Shire would not have the capacity to implement the improvements required without considerable financial burden to ratepayers

What actions will the Shire be taking to implement the Strategic Waste Management Plan?

 The Shire has already commenced implementing the Strategic Waste Management Strategy and actions that have started or are due to be completed over the next 12 months are:

• Improve the operations and management of sites;
• Purchase appropriate plant and equipment to effectively undertake operations;
• Start to progressively rehabilitate the sites;
• Construct stormwater management system and establish groundwater monitoring bores;
• Produce operational plans and guidelines for the facility;
• Improve customer information recording system;
• Provide improved staff facilities;
• Increase the sustainable recycling of materials;
• Change fees and charges so that ‘user-pays’.