Waste and Recycling

The harmful effects of human litter and waste on wildlife in the marine and estuarine environments are recognised as a Key Threatening Process to biodiversity under Federal and State legislation. The ingestion of or entanglement in debris such as plastic litter can cause injury and a slow and painful death for wildlife.

The Authority’s pollution control measures prevented approximately to 82 tonnes of waste from entering the Park’s waterways during 2017-18:

• 62.2 tonnes of stormwater litter and sediment captured by over 40 gross pollutant separation units (including 13 tonnes generated upstream of the Park);
• 5.8 tonnes of floating litter originating upstream of the Park captured by more than 10 floating litter booms;
• 14 tonnes of waste captured in 76 roadside pits and drains.

What can you do to assist in combating litter entering the Park’s Waterways?

If you are determined to prevent litter from entering the Park’s Waterways and causing harm to wildlife, you can sign up to volunteer your time and join community Clean-Up groups to pick up litter at the Park. 
To combat litter at Badu Mangroves, sign up for Clean Up Program session and assist Park Rangers in collecting litter.

To combat litter at Haslam’s Creek Flats, join War on Waste- Newington and Wentworth Point community group alongside the Authority to pick up litter.

What else can you do to reduce the amount of waste entering the environment?

The Authority collected a staggering 437 tonnes of general waste from the public domain and 448 tonnes of comingled waste was collected from sport venues (59% was recovered for recycling).
As a resident of Sydney Olympic Park you can help to reduce the amount of rubbish created each day through simple actions:

• Use a re-usable water bottle instead of single-use water bottles. There are over 80 drinking fountains across Sydney Olympic Park that you can use to refill your reusable bottle on the go. See our map for drinking fountain locations
• Say ‘no’ to single-use plastic straws, and if a straw is needed for drinking- use a reusable straw instead
• Say ‘no’ to single-use cutlery, and use a reusable cutlery set
• Use a re-usable bag instead of single-use plastic bags
• Use a re-usable coffee cup instead of single-use coffee cups

For re-usable products check out the ranges conveniently available at online stores!

Parramatta Council collects and disposes all residential waste from Sydney Olympic Park. If you have any queries or concerns please contact your body corporate or Parramatta Council on 1300 617 058.   
As a resident of Sydney Olympic Park you could choose to reduce the amount of rubbish created each day at home through simple actions:

• Where possible, choose products with no packaging or less packaging. 
• Choose items with recyclable packaging and recycle correctly

Do you know about REDcycle?

Recycling all of your soft plastics or scrunchable plastics via REDCYCLE, as these plastics cannot be recycled in your home recycling bin. 

What can you do with your organic waste?

Use a compost or worm farm at home to process your organic waste.
And for discounted composting equipment, see what’s available via Compost Revolution.

If you have organic scraps but no compost / worm farm, or need more organic scraps for your compost / worm farm you can sign up to Share Waste and work with people in your community to divert waste from landfill.

What can you do with your e-waste?

Don’t throw your e-waste away in the general rubbish bin; instead allow the precious resources to be recycled by taking advantage of e-waste collection services.

What else can you do?

Support the second-hand economy and find a bargain and help out the environment by getting familiar with the Op Shop Guide, Parramatta. 

Help recycle our street banners into Bags, whether you are skilled at sewing or want to learn how, join the local community in sewing reusable bags out of street banners otherwise destined for landfill.

Try out Plastic Free July! Have you heard about it? Pledging to take the Plastic Free July challenge can really help guide you to living a single-use plastic free lifestyle. Don’t forget you can start any day of the year!