CYCLONE ALFRED

GREENERY FROM CYCLONE ALFRED PILES UP AT ISLAND WASTE CENTRES

As a result of Cyclone Alfred, the island waste recycling centres are literally ‘bursting at the seams’.

Literally hundreds of tonnes of green waste has been delivered to the two biggest waste centres on the islands at Macleay and Russell Islands.

The small refuse collection areas on Lamb and Karragarra Islands have also been inundated.

Rarely seen on the islands previously, there have been queues of cars and trailers lined up to dump their green waste, thanks to Cyclone Alfred.

The situation has been compounded by council trucks also dropping the remains of hundreds of trees and thousand of branches that have been piled by residents on all island roadsides and streets.

To say the pile of green foliage is a ‘mountain’, is somewhat of an understatement.

Jayde Bennet is one of the long-time managers at the Russell Island Waster Facility and Transfer Station  in Davidson Road.

She says she has ‘never seen anything like it’.

‘Cars, trailers and trucks are lined up bringing in load after load,” she told The Friendly Bay Islander.

Where once the ‘green’ section of the Waste Transfer Station only took up about 1/4 of the area at the facility, it has now spread over most of the tip area.

Not only that, it is also three times higher than ever before.

The situation is almost exactly the same at the Macleay Island Waste Transfer Station.

At the time of writing this story, there were still huge loads of fallen limbs piled up by residents on nearly every island street.

The process to clear them all council take several weeks.

To compound the situation, eventually all the green waste from all four islands will eventually be moved to the mainland and the Redlands waste centre.

And this additional procedure could take months!

• Jade Bennett shows just how high the green waste mountain is on Russell Island.

• Huge piles at the Macleay Island Waste Transfer station.