Kerbside Collection Archives

Chermside Kerbside Collection 2021: Breathe New Life Into Old Items With These Upcycling Tips

Photo credit: Pinterest/dishfunctionaldesigns.blogspot.com

Attention, Chermside residents! Brisbane’s kerbside collection is back and it’s Chermside’s turn soon. Before you put things out on the kerb, take a second look at everything and consider upcycling. Here are some useful tips.

Read: Look: Plans Revealed For Old-style American Diner In Chermside

The kerbside collection date for Chermside is on 15 November 2021. If you’re planning to join, make sure your items are on the kerb by 6:00 a.m. at the start of the collection period.

Upcycling requires a bit of creativity but it can be fun to give a fabulous new life into old items. If you’re new to upcycling, here are some tips to get you started:

Plan Ahead

Photo credit: Pinterest/birdzofafeather.ca

The secret to successful upcycling is planning ahead. Gather all the tools and equipment that you will need for the job. For instance, if you’re planning to upcycle a piece of old furniture indoors, you may want to consider using a cordless tool to help you manoeuvre easily.

Just Have Fun

Anything goes in upcycling because there are no rules in doing it. The best part of upcycling is it encourages creativity. A great example is this project by Art studio L’Atelier d’Orel where they took the spinning drum from an unrepairable washing machine and converted it into a beautiful industrial table. Here’s an instruction on how you can create one yourself from home.

Photo credit: Pinterest/mypurposedlife.com

Be Bold

Photo credit: www.charlessturt.sa.gov.au

Don’t be afraid to take risks and experiment with colours and materials. If you have an old bike that you can’t throw away because it reminds you of your first cycling years, consider turning it into a planter. You can paint it with something bright like yellow or pink to match your garden.

Photo credit: Pinterest/homesthetics.net

Other Upcycling Tips from BCC

Brisbane City Council encourages reusing and upcycling. You can also follow these tips from Council to ensure an efficient reusing & upcycling process:

Donate quality items to local charities. Supported by the Queensland Government, GIVIT is a charity that receives donation from donors and privately passes it to people in need.
Drop them off council’s free resource recovery centres. Donated items are turned over to Council’s Treasure Troves (formerly tip shops) which are located in Acacia Ridge and Geebung.

Finally, don’t forget to install Brisbane Bin and Recycling App. in addition to helping residents stay up-to-date with collection days, the app also helps make recycling quick and simple with an alphabetical list of materials with information on how to recycle or dispose of them.

Avoid Illegal Dumping Fines and Get Ready for September Kerbside Collection in Chermside

Do you know that over $110,000 in fines was collected from Brisbane residents for illegal dumping in the last financial year? Unfortunately, Chermside has the most number of illegal dumping incidents, despite Council’s kerbside collection, along with Forest Lake, Sunnybank Hills, Carindale, Willawong and Inala.

As a result, the Council is keeping a sharp eye on Chermside to prevent illegal dumping. While the fines collected have been substantial, it is still not enough to cover for Council expenses for cleaning up the rubbish residents dump anywhere.

On average, Council spends $500,000 a year to clean up sites where illegal dumping is rampant.

“Every dollar spent cleaning up their mess is money that could be invested back into the community and spent on things like footpaths, parks or roads,” Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said.

“I encourage residents to correctly dispose of their rubbish and warn them that if you do the wrong thing, you will be caught, and fined.

*Photo Credit: Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner/Facebook*

Mr Schrinner also reminded residents that Council provides free kerbside collections regularly and there are avenues for which hazardous waste can be disposed of.

“There really is no excuse for residents to be illegally dumping anywhere in Brisbane.”

On Monday, the 2nd of Sept 2019, at 6:00 a.m. the Council will once again have its kerbside collection in Chermside. As of this writing, residents still have a few more days to gather acceptable items to be picked up by collectors.

If you include unacceptable items on your kerbside pile, the collectors will leave these behind. You could be fined if these are not removed within a week after the kerbside collection. So, be careful NOT to put these out for the pick-up:

bricks and concrete
commercial builders waste
car parts and tyres, including car batteries
dirt and stones
garden waste (e.g. trees, grass, potted plants)
gas bottles
general household waste (e.g. food scraps)
glass and mirrors
hazardous wastes (e.g. chemicals, oil, asbestos)
household waste that normally goes into your waste or recycling bin
liquids

Instead, make arrangements with waste reduction and recycling facilities to dispose of these unacceptable items properly. Phone Council at 07 3403 8888 for enquiries

Kerbside in Chermside: Collection Soon!

Chermside is next up for BCC’s Kerbside Collection on Monday, the 28th of August. This is the perfect time to get rid of those unwanted clutter and those pieces of furniture and appliances that are too big for the wheelie bins.

Be mindful of the items that you will take out on your kerb. There is a list of acceptable and unacceptable items. You can’t take out household waste that normally goes into the waste and recycle bins. The Council will not collect glass, mirrors, car parts, car tyres, and car batteries.

Kerbside collection happens only once a year, but you can’t just dump everything at once this day. The Council will only collect piles that are not larger than two cubic metres, in order to cater to the whole neighbourhood.

If you have items that are not included on the approved list or reached the Council’s kerb limit, you can take these items to these places.

Resource Recovery Centres

The Resource Recovery Centres is open for both recyclable and green or general waste. There are four recovery centres in Brisbane, formerly known as transfer stations, located in Willawong, Chandler, Ferny Grove, and Nudgee. The upgraded centres will help in reducing waste to landfill by making recycling easier and faster.

Vehicles that are under 4.5 tonnes Combined Gross Vehicle Mass (CGVM) can use the drive-through recycling area for free, whilst vehicles above 4.5 tonnes CGVM can still recycle, but with fees applied.

The centres are open from 6:30 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. every day of the year, including Christmas Day and other holidays.

Tip Shops

The Resource Recovery Centres turn over all recyclable items to the tip shops in Acacia Ridge and Geebung. These items include household furnishings, collectables, books, toys, and sporting equipments.

The tip shops are operated by the Endeavour Foundation, one of the largest non-government organisations in the country that helps people with disabilities.

These shops aim to reduce the amount of waste to landfill by reusing, recycling, and recovering valuable resources. The shops urge people to rethink, recycle, and upcycle our rubbish.

The tip shops are only open on Saturdays and Sundays, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. All of the proceeds are reinvested back into providing assistance to people with disabilities.

Photo credit: matthew_newkirk_art/Instagram

From July to August, the Salvage Recycling Art Exhibition at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts display the works of artists that used items from the tip shops. There is also free upcycling workshops that will demonstrate how to effectively restore items.

NACRO

One man’s trash can be another man’s treasure. Why don’t you save these items from getting dumped and donate the items to charity?

According to the February 2017 NAB Charitable Giving Index, total charitable giving fell in Queensland by 2.5% over the year course since February 2016. This has made Queensland the lowest of all the states in terms of total donations.

The National Association of Charitable Recycling Organisations Inc. (NACRO) is the peak organisation that holds several charities and tip shops all over Australia. The Endeavour Foundation is also under NACRO.

Everyday, NACRO is assisting people across Australia through home visitations, refugee assistance, hospital and health services, aged care services, and other essential programs that are beneficial to the society.

GIVIT

GIVIT is a national non-profit virtual organisation founded by CEO Juliette Wright. They support all agencies, services, and charities in Australia to store, sort out, and distribute the donations to specific individuals or communities who exactly need the items. This virtual organisation is currently supporting over 1,240 charities and community service providers all over Australia.

Interested donors can either check the list of the items needed by other people and the charities or pledge the items into the virtual warehouse by registering every item on their website with specifications on the delivery preferences. Just be mindful of the list of prohibited items to avoid inconveniences.

You can donate as much as you can, but make sure that these items are usable. People in need deserve to receive quality items, too.