When 4 Corners presented a program on the detrimental environmental, financial and social impacts of trucking NSW garbage to Queensland, naming some of the dodgy elements involved, I thought our ‘greenish’ council would act on their own involvement.
I brought this up at a Byron Greens meeting, wrote several letters to the Byron Shire Echo and addressed a council meeting. Only Councillor Ndiaye contacted me with a request for information but, presumably after counselling, headed for safer territory.
Byron has been dumping in Queensland for many years despite owning a valuable disused gravel pit next to their current landfill. In 2012 the Barham council was about to commission this as a state-of-the-art processing facility. Presumably council staff found rubbish-running to Queensland cheaper and fed our councillors their usual mushroom food.
With rubbish now overwhelming facilities world-wide, it was inevitable that costs would escalate exponentially, but forward planning has never been a Byron council skill set.
With Queensland prices starting to escalate (‘Councils face price hike for garbage disposal’ in Echonetdaily) we are now in catch-up mode and it is going to cost ratepayers.
At their meeting yesterday councillors were to vote on a motion aimed at finding out what is going on in the organisation prior to hiring a new GM , let’s hope they heed the results and start leading rather than being led.
Tom Tabart, co-founder Byron Greens
