MidCoast Council has urged residents outside of flood-impacted areas to not put their waste on the kerbside as major flood clean-up works continue.
Over 15,000 tonnes of waste have already been picked up from kerbsides in areas impacted by flooding and that volume is expected to climb considerably as affected residents and business-owners continue sorting through the damage.
Council’s Director of Liveable Communities, Paul De Szell, said that some properties had been completely inundated in the rising floodwaters and as a result people have lost all their possessions.
“It’s absolutely tragic to see the contents of people’s homes and businesses piled out on the kerb, waiting to be taken away,” said De Szell.
“We’ve got a huge job on our hands to try and get all this waste off the streets as soon as possible, and what we don’t need is people in areas that weren’t impacted by flooding to try and add their waste to the load.”
Mr De Szell said Council was seeing waste piles pop up outside of the flood-impacted areas, including some of the higher parts of Taree and even as far afield as Forster and Tuncurry.
Kerbside flood waste is currently being collected and disposed of outside the MidCoast. This allows space in the region’s landfills to be preserved for the waste from Council’s weekly red bin collection.
Mr De Szell said this arrangement was critical for ensuring Council didn’t have to spend money on creating more landfill space, which would ultimately cost local ratepayers.
However, he stressed that Council was only allowed to get rid of waste from flood-impacted areas.
“While I appreciate that a lot properties were impacted by the intense rainfall that led to the flooding, there are clear distinctions between flood damage and stormwater damage and Council is obliged to stick to these distinctions,” De Szell said.
“The areas that flooded have been clearly mapped – those are areas where rising floodwater inundated properties – and these are the areas that our kerbside collections will focus on.”
Any kerbside waste piles in locations outside of flood-impacted areas will not be collected as part of Council’s flood waste clean-up. People in these areas will need to book a Bulky Waste collection once the service resumes.
De Szell said that Council would work to get the Bulky Waste service up and running again as soon as possible.
But he asked the community to remain patient.
“We’ve just experienced the highest level of flooding on record and the amount of waste it generated is extraordinary. At the moment, all our resources are being directed to the clean-up effort, but we’ll do our absolute best to get to you as soon as possible.”
For more information on Council’s flood waste clean-up, visit midcoast.nsw.gov.au/floodrecovery
