Council is seeking community input on the services and facilities that you interact with when you visit our Resource Recovery Centres and what you would like to see at these facilities in the future.

We want to understand how to improve the user experience and what will make you visit our Centres more often so we recover more resources and reduce waste to landfill.

Provide your input now via the community survey on this page!

The survey asks for feedback on:

• Main reasons for visiting (or not visiting) Resource Recovery Centres in the past.
• Preferences for Centre opening hours.
• Whether resident subsidy schemes such as ‘tip vouchers’ would make you visit Resource Recovery Centres more and any other feedback about tip vouchers.
• Other services you would like to use at our Resource Recovery Centres in the future (remember: this infrastructure is designed to meet the needs of the community for the next 30-40 years).
• How long you would be prepared to travel to a Resource Recovery Centre and any other suggestions for adjustments or additions to our Centres that could improve your overall Resource Recovery Centre visit time.
• Whether you would use a ‘tip shop’ and, if so, what would you purchase there.
• The prioritisation of design factors such as ease of use at the facility to make dropping off quicker and easier, traffic management initiatives and sustainable construction methods.
• Any other thoughts on how to improve the user experience of Ipswich City Council’s Resource Recovery Centres so we can increase visitation, recover more resources and ultimately reduce waste to landfill.

Building new Resource Recovery Centres is a significant investment that is designed to service the community for 30-40 years.

Given this long lifespan, we need to build our Centres with long-term population growth and industry developments in mind. The materials the community will want to drop-off at our Centres and the technology available to help us recover resources will also evolve considerably over this time.

Therefore, we also need to think about how we can ensure our Centres are conducive to progressive improvements and upgrades.

Resource Recovery Infrastructure refers to facilities that receive and manage materials to enable them to be reused or reprocessed. This includes drop-off points, resale centres, resource recovery centres, transfer stations and materials recovery facilities.

Results from the Reducing Our Waste community engagement found a majority of residents surveyed only wanted to travel 10km to a recycling and refuse centre.

With significant population growth expected over the coming decade, particularly within the southeast corner of Ipswich, more infrastructure is needed to meet this request.

Ipswich currently operates two Resource Recovery Centres at Riverview and Rosewood. Both are over 30 years old.

Ipswich's primary facility, the Riverview Centre, is experiencing significant capacity constraints as it has not had a capacity increase since it was established.

Having the right infrastructure in place means that we can deliver the right waste services for our community.

A Resource Recovery Centre is a facility where households can bring selected materials and household items for recycling and reuse. These Centres can also be called drop-off facilities.

In preparing to plan for two new state-of-the-art Resource Recovery Centres, Council is currently investigating facilities and services such as a Recycle Mart where you can take large items for recycling and reselling to others as well as resident subsidy schemes to maximise the opportunity for recycling and material recovery.

Complete the user experience survey on this page now to provide your input on these and other potential facilities and services!

Council expects to be in a position to release more information about the future Southern Resource Recovery Centre in the next few months.

The site of the future Western Resource Recovery Centre has not been identified.

No. Council has no plans to own or operate any landfill sites. The new infrastructure planned will be a fit-for-purpose Resource Recovery Centre that will receive materials from Ipswich residents for recycling and recovery.

The primary purpose of our Resource Recovery Centres is to recover, sort, transfer and recycle materials from household waste. Our Centres are designed with this purpose in mind. However, the new Centres will include a small section to collect waste that cannot be recovered or recycled.

Resource Recovery Centres are not landfill or disposal facilities. Instead, the role of Resource Recovery Centres is to recover, sort, transfer and recycle materials from household waste.

No materials are stored on site long term as they are transported off site quickly (no longer than 3 days). Materials not recoverable are transported off site daily for appropriate processing.

A landfill is a facility where no materials are recovered and waste is placed into or onto the ground where it is then compacted and covered for long-term containment.

Council's new infrastructure will be Resource Recovery Centres and not a landfill.

Current facilities are highly congested and building new resource recovery infrastructure will help alleviate this.

Thorough assessment and analysis will be conducted for a potential Resource Recovery Centre site. These are completed to highlight what conditions may change and which roads and intersections could be affected.

Resource Recovery facilities do not operate material processing machinery that generate significant noise that will cause disturbances to the surroundings.

The potential distance of a Resource Recovery Centre location to residential areas is also considered when assessing potential sites.

Additionally, design elements will consider amenity issues such as noise to incorporate any necessary sound attenuation barriers to have a “buffering effect” that reduce sound transmission.

Resource Recovery Centres do not operate material processing machinery that generate significant smell that will cause disturbances to the surroundings.

Resource Recovery Centres do not store waste materials on site long term. The materials that are disposed at resource recovery facilities aren’t similar to those placed in general waste red lid bins but instead less odour producing household items such TVs, bikes, and furniture, etc.

Materials are promptly sorted and transferred for recycling or recovery.

Any potential water, air and land impacts are related to waste materials being stored on site. However, at Resource Recovery Centres, waste materials are not stored on site long term so impacts are limited.

State Government and Council planning laws require that before any facilities such as a Resource Recovery Centre is planned detailed environmental assessments are carried out.

Resource Recovery Centres operate under an ERA licence 62 which ensures monitoring and regulation by state government. Find out more information here.

The community has previously expressed interest in council providing some form of ‘resident subsidy schemes’ such as ‘tip vouchers’.

One of the challenges we have faced in exploring subsidies has been that subsidies will increase demand.

Our two existing Resource Recovery Centres (Riverview and Rosewood) are now over 30 years old and operating at over-capacity resulting in long wait times for the community.

New resource recovery infrastructure will relieve over-capacity issues and allow council to explore resident subsidy schemes such as tip vouchers.

Complete the community survey found on this page to share with us if tip vouchers would encourage you to visit a Resource Recovery Centre more often and other feedback about tip vouchers you may have.

Council is currently exploring operating a ‘Tip Shop’ or 'Recycle Mart' at the new Southern Resource Recovery Centre.

Complete the community survey found on this page to tell us if you would use a tip shop, and what you would like to purchase there.

The full of list of recyclable and recoverable materials is available at the Ipswich Council Website here. Council is exploring increasing the options for residents to recycle and resource recover more materials.

Take the Resource Recovery Centre community survey found on this page to suggest which materials you would like to be able to recover at our Resource Recovery Centres.