Bundaberg Regional Council has reached a new environmental milestone after collecting 400,000 agvet chemical containers through the recycling program drumMUSTER.
The region is responsible for collecting and recycling nearly 450 tonnes (or roughly 409,000 drums) of agvet container waste from farmers and agvet chemical users during the 13 years the program has been running in the region.
Waste management facilities around the region run the program as part of a service to users.
Staff at waste sites are trained by drumMUSTER to inspect and collect drums and store them in purpose built cages to await recycling.
Queensland drumMUSTER Consultant Colin Hoey said Bundaberg has a long and successful history with drumMUSTER.
“Council’s first collection was at Meadowvale in 1999” he said. “The region’s best ever year was 2011-12 when 71,813 drums were recycled.”
“This was probably due to Council expanding the program to include more sites on an ongoing basis that year.”
Bundaberg Regional Council’s portfolio spokesperson for Waste & Recycling Vince Habermann said the achievement wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance of local farmers and chemical users who continue to get involved with drumMUSTER every year.
“drumMUSTER is an essential program for our community,” Cr Habermann said.
“This milestone highlights the continued efforts of our agricultural community who do the right thing and return their waste in a responsible manner.”
“Having an avenue to safely recycle chemical containers is very important for our region, particularly given the prevalence of horticultural production.”
Colin said the success of the program in the region is also due to the hard work from participating processors, Impact.
“Impact are responsible for collecting well over 230,000 drums directly from properties in their on-farm pickups in the area. That’s more than half the drums collected in the area,” Colin said.
drumMUSTER asks all users to rinse their drums clean and let them dry before returning them to one of the hundreds of drumMUSTER locations across the state.
drumMUSTER has collected more than 22 million drums nation-wide since 1999. That represents more than 27,000 tonnes of waste avoiding landfill.
Once collected, the waste and is recycled into new and useful things again, like plastic cable covers, wheelie bins and pipes.
For further information on the drumMUSTER program, call 1800 008 707.