Green waste bins could soon be back on Shoalhaven Council's agenda, following a push from Cr Serena Copley.
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She is calling for an audit of the Shoalhaven's kerbside wheelie bins, with a notice of motion going to the council meeting on Monday, April 8.
Cr Copley said she had "always been a fan and advocate for green bins", to help meet State Government requirements to separate all food organics and garden organics from landfill.
"The spectacular failure of the Bioelektra project last year has left the city with a number of problems - the most significant being that the Ccity does not have a waste management strategy that meets NSW Government legislative requirements," Cr Copley said.
"And we have less than 10 years of landfill capacity available at the West Nowra Recycling and Waste Depot to manage the city's waste needs."
She said 10 years was "nothing" in the waste management industry, as any solution was "not going to happen overnight" - requiring planning, budgeting and construction of appropriate facilities.
Yet the council had the ideal opportunity right now with a large area of land beside the West Nowra facility, which had been cleared for Bioelektra, Cr Copley said.
"This is the starting point," she said.
"Let's show the community that we are investigating this."
Green waste bins emerged as a key issue during the last council election, being raised repeatedly at community meetings.
While the option was repeatedly dismissed in favour of the Bioelektra project, "Since it became apparent that Bioelektra was no longer an option I am regularly being asked, 'What do we do now'," Cr Copley said.
"The motion I am raising is, I believe, the start to finding an answer to that question."
She said separating green waste aimed at extending the life of the West Nowra tip, and also about saving money because council was charged a high rate for every tonne of waste sent to landfill.
"For all the years that we've fluffed around on this it's cost the city millions of dollars," Cr Copley said.
"Councillors will need to decide on a strategy to meet the waste needs of the city for the future, and I believe the only way we can make informed decisions is to have current and reliable data to consider.
"The first step to acquiring this data is to find out what the city is sending to the waste depot and for this we need an audit of our wheelie bins," she said.
"In order to move forward we need to have a clear understanding of the waste that the city is generating.
"What is the composition of general waste, green waste and food organic waste in our bins that we are sending to the waste depot," Cr Copley said.
"The only way to do this is to commission an audit of the city's wheelie bins."
