2025 Waste and Recycling in Queensland Report
The 2025 Waste and Recycling in Queensland Report is now available.
Key findings for 2024-25 are:
Queensland generated a total of 10.25 million tonnes of headline waste. This is a 4.5% increase from 2023-24 and is set against the backdrop of Queensland’s population growth of 2.3% and economic growth of 2.4% during the same period.
The overall recovery rate increased by 0.7% to 57.8% (from 57.1% in 2023-24). The increase was largely driven by further improvements in recovery rates for commercial and industrial waste (0.7% increase) and construction and demolition waste (1.7% increase) compared to 2023-24.
Less than a third of household waste was recovered in 2024-25. The recovery rate for municipal solid waste (including household waste) remains flat and has actually declined by a further 0.1% compared to 2023-24.
A total of 4.33 million tonnes of headline wastes was sent to landfill, a 121,100 tonne increase from 2023-24.
Approximately 208,000 tonnes of waste was sent for energy recovery, a 117% increase from 2023-24.
We desperately need to address the enormous volumes of waste going to landfill, and the most effective way would be for governments to legislate for producers to shoulder some of the burden of the waste that their products create. This is known as Extended Producer Responsibility and it shifts the financial and physical responsibility for a product's entire life cycle - especially disposal and recycling - from governments to producers, importers and retailers, thus encouraging better design to reduce waste and promote a circular economy.
Also, let's not forget the role of individual action to drive our message home. This might take the form of stripping our fresh produce of excess plastic packaging in the supermarket at the checkout and leaving the packaging there. This action could be interpreted as rather annoying, but if enough people do it an unequivocal message will be sent to the retailers that we consumers don't accept the volume of packaging forced upon us. As a friend once said to me, if you think one individual can't make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito in your bedroom!