Petition circulates showing community support to bring yellow recycling bins to Geraldton

A petition to bring recycling bins to Geraldton is circulating in the community, garnering almost 1000 signatures in the five weeks it has been active.

Petition creator Duke Warren used to live in Geraldton and felt the absence of recycling bins during his time in the city.

“As a city they have a role to play in diverting these materials. A majority of people want to recycle, they just don’t have the means to do so,” he said.

There are some things to adjust to when newcomers move to Geraldton, such as learning to tolerate the wind, and making your peace with a perpetually sandy bed.

But being unable to put cardboard boxes from a grocery haul, plastic containers or empty cans into a recycling bin is a frustration shared by the 893 people who have signed their names in support on the digital petition.

Mr Warren suggests disposal points for materials as an interim solution, while the City of Greater Geraldton establishes a collection service.

“It gives people an option, and it’s a start, which is better than nothing,“ he said.

Geraldton is yet to introduce kerbside recycling, but is not the only regional town without it.

Recent data shows 36 local governments do not offer a domestic service, mostly in the Wheatbelt, Goldfields-Esperance, Kimberley, Mid West Gascoyne, Pilbara and Kimberley regions.

Mr Warren pointed to the City of Busselton’s commingled recycling program, in which residents can drop off recyclables at shared bins, with lists to categorise their recyclables even further.

Albany, Augusta, Dunsborough and Kalgoorlie-Boulder are regional centres which run successful recycling collection services, and Mr Warren hopes Geraldton can follow in their footsteps.

The price of transporting waste was another leg for the argument for sustainability to stand on, Mr Warren said. He said the cost of transporting waste would be wiped out if it could be processed locally using existing programs.

“The e-waste recycling centre in Geraldton is a great example of how much can be done locally,” he said.

The city of Greater Geraldton is trialling a food organics and garden organics bin program until June, giving green-lidded bins to 500 residents.

Should the trial be successful, Geraldton will be joining 18 local governments across WA in rolling out the system, which was established in 2017, making up 200,000 total households using the system.

Mr Warren said reducing and reusing waste were always better options than recycling, but he hoped one day the third link in the chain could be established in Geraldton.

The petition, run by change.org, was started in early December, after the 22-year-old gauged an appetite in the city for residents to be able to play their role in sustainability.