Residents in the New South Wales Riverina are up in arms about tens of thousands of tonnes of recycling waste from Sydney and surrounding areas being dumped in landfill sites in their local region.
The waste, which has come via a Visy paper mill in Tumut, contains chemical contaminants which locals residents fear have the potential to contaminate the local water supplies.
Recycling researcher at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Jenni Downes, said many people struggle to sort their waste from their garbage, which ends up contaminating recycling. The end result is that recyclers like Visy end up with thousands of tonnes of recycling which they cannot process and that needs to go somewhere.