Nearly 1000 trucks of rubbish a day were being carted to landfill following the flood.
Anyone driving past the piles of mud-damaged furniture lining the footpaths of Brisbane last month knew the city had a massive clean-up on its hands.
Now it’s been revealed just how much rubbish the floods created.
Brisbane City Council said almost one year’s worth of landfill was picked up during last month’s clean-up with 291,000 tonnes of rubbish going to council dumps and temporary facilities.
The annual amount of household waste collected in Brisbane is 300,000 tonnes.
During the course of the clean-up, 950 trucks per day were dumping rubbish at the landfill site at Rochedale, a massive increase on the typical 100 daily visits.
Despite the large haul Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said the Rochedale site still had capacity until the predicted date of 2019.
He said there had been minimal impact on the site with waste diverted to sites such as Swanbank.
Areas such as vacant properties, parks, park’n’rides, sporting fields, car parks and old landfill sites were also used as temporary holding areas for the waste.
All waste has been removed from those temporary sites and returfing and repair of those areas continues.
Mr Newman said the focus was now on Brisbane’s long-term recovery, which he believed could take many months.
“That’s why I have set up a task group to focus on the city’s recovery and work with state government agencies that are looking after the state-wide recovery effort,” he said.
