General News
2 July, 2025
Barkly council has sights set on recycling facility
Could Mount Isa bring in recyclables from the Northern Territory?
Mount Isa could become a cross-border waste recycling hub, with Barkly Regional Council willing to consider a future commercial partnership with the Outback city’s new facility.
Mount Isa City Council opened its $21 million Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in February as the city’s residents transitioned to splitting rubbish between red and yellow top bins.
While the initial months have focused on training new workers and becoming accustomed to processing the weekly waste generated from local businesses and households, the council has long-term plans to vastly widen the scope to accept recyclable materials from surrounding towns, especially Cloncurry.
However, there could be future commercial recycling opportunities over the border.
As previously reported, Mount Isa mayor Peta MacRae and Barkly mayor Sid Vashist are looking to re-establish the Tennant Creek-Mount Isa Cross-Border Commission, which will see their two shires partner on areas such as housing, energy, transport, workforce and community safety.
Cr Vashist said that with the population set to increase due to the development of the vast Tennant Creek Mineral Field, the Barkly council saw an opportunity to push for a yellow top recycling system to be introduced.
“There has always been this belief that we aren’t ready for recycling, but I disagree,” Cr Vashist told North West Weekly.
“I think it is something we should be pushing for. We definitely have a lot to learn from Mount Isa about how your city moved into recycling.
“And these are the sorts of conversations we are now starting through the partnership we are reforming with Mount Isa – whether we can feed to your recovery facility in the future or whether we have something of our own is all up for discussion.
“I’m excited to see what opportunities this new partnership can bring.”
Barkly Regional Council generates an estimated 1500 tonnes of plastic waste each year, with packaging making up the largest single source. Across the entire Northern Territory, only about four per cent of plastic waste is recycled.
The major impediments include long distances between population centres, and the high costs of transporting waste to recycling facilities interstate.
A 2024 report by the Local Government Association of Northern Territory identified the need to improve waste collection services after it found examples across rural areas where more than 90 per cent of material collected was being buried.
The report said better financial resourcing for the local councils was required to improve recycling opportunities, especially for so-called “low-hanging waste”, such as plastics and glass, which is the type of product currently being processed daily at the Mount Isa facility.
Cr MacRae said the emerging partnership with Barkly provided a raft of new economic opportunities for Mount Isa, including future recycling contracts.
“These are the kinds of ideas that we are keen to talk to the Barkly council about; it is just a matter of getting that connectivity, and logistics between our regions,” Cr MacRae said.
“Whether it is for people for flights or waste or trucking, we are trying to determine what are the lengths that we need to put into place to make it more economical and streamline the processes.”
Cr Vashist also called on the Northern Territory government to appoint its own cross-border commissioner to improve relations between Tennant Creek and Mount Isa at a state and territory government level.
Cr Vashist said Queensland’s Cross-Border Commissioner Ian Leavers would be better served if he had a single point of contact in the Territory.
“At the moment, Ian Leavers is having to reach out and make several phone calls to different groups and departments in the Territory,” he said.
“He is going to have much more support, and the role is going to work much better, if Ian Leavers has just a single person to contact.
“That’s something I have been pushing for in the Territory – we really want our Territory government to look at creating this position.”