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
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
