Tamworth people have done their part to cut down the amount of used paint and oil tins from winding up in landfill.
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In the past year alone, more than 22,000kg of used tins were recycled at the Tamworth Waste Management Facility on Forest Road.
Recycling the products not only frees up room in landfill sites, but the metal is recycled into new products while the used paint is made into fuel for cement kilns.
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Northern Inland Regional Waste (NIRW) project manager Sam Swain said recycling numbers were up across the region.
"We've seen a big increase across the 11 community recycling centres across our region and we've seen a substantial increase in the last few years," Mr Swain told the Leader.
"It's fantastic to see big locations like Tamworth get behind the recycling initiative, but smaller places like Walcha have done their fair share as well.
"Year on year, there has been an increase particularly with paints but also with things like batteries, fire extinguishers and things like that."
Mr Swain said he was hopeful the recycling numbers would continue to climb in coming years.
"All 11 of the community recycling centres are free to use in terms of dropping off things like batteries, paints and even old smoke detectors," he said.
"Anyone who needs to dispose of these sorts of things can bring them to their local recycling centre and they will be directed to the right place.
"It's a very easy process and prevents a lot of things from ending up in landfill that could be reused."
As Clean Up Australia Day approaches on March 1, Mr Swain said NIRW would continue to push the message of recycling.
"I think it would be possible for the Tamworth community to better the 2019 paint and oil recycling number by at least 500kg," he said.
"There's two main things we are pushing to see recycled more this year and they are household batteries, used motor oils and cooking oils.
"Every community recycling centre is set up for these things to be dropped off, so if we can see more of these things disposed of correctly, that would be great."
Billy Jupp
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
