Council urges residents to limit trips to Waste Management Facilities

Toowoomba Regional Council (TRC) is urging the community wherever possible, to limit trips, limit passengers and maintain social distancing to help avoid delays when visiting Council’s waste management facilities.

TRC General Manager of Water and Waste, Mr Damian Platts said Council had seen significant growth in visits to Waste Management Facilities (WMF) since mid-March when the Federal and State Government’s directed the community to ‘stay at home’.

“Council has recorded an increase of around 65% in visits to WMF’s when compared to the trend of long term weekly average visits**,” Mr Platts said.

“In the week leading up to Easter 2020, Council WMF saw 9754 visits, and this compares to 5286 in the same period in 2019. The pre-Easter figures are 1441 higher than last year’s peak of 8313 visits during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve 2019.

“This significant increase in visits, the requirement for social distancing, as well as new procedures limiting the number of customers onsite means the community will experience delays when visiting our WMFs.

“The community can avoid delays at WMF’s by limiting their visits, making use of Council’s kerbside collection service for general waste, recycling and green waste and also ensure they are carrying a full load, rather than making multiple visits.

“Council’s WMFs remain open as an essential service for community waste disposal, and only the tip shop at Greater Toowoomba WMF remains closed.

For more information about Council Waste Management Facilities, visit www.tr.qld.gov.au/waste.

**Council long term weekly average visits to Waste Management Facilities is 5,928.

Caption: Graph of visits to TRC Waste Management Facilities 2019 and 2020 to date