Mayoral Column – Paving the way for innovative waste solutions

Wednesday, 5 November 2025

Penrith City Council is thrilled to have a number of our projects as finalists in this week’s Keep Australia Beautiful NSW 2025 Sustainable Cities Awards, including the prestigious Overall Sustainable Cities Award.

Penrith is a proud leader in responsible waste management – and we continue to explore innovative ways to be more sustainable, reduce our impact on the natural environment, contribute to the circular economy and build community resilience.

In 2009, we were the first metropolitan council to introduce the Food Organics, Garden Organics (FOGO) waste stream, and our leadership was recognised with last year’s Resource Recovery Award. We’re now the first to extend the service to residents in apartment buildings.

One of our finalist projects encourages greater involvement in the circular economy through community engagement, education and collaboration. Council has been holding bicycle and textile recycling drop-off events, repair workshops and community clothes swaps to extend the lifespan of these items or allow them to be reused or recycled.

Through a multi-pronged approach to provide solutions and offer skill-building opportunities for residents, we had 70 people attend our clothing repair workshops and 90 bikes were checked and tuned at our bike repair workshops.

This keeps items in use for longer and saves our residents money – patching up your favourite pair of jeans or getting your bike tuned is cheaper than buying new ones.

This initiative alone has diverted 9.2 tonnes of material from landfill. Council once again commends our incredible community for your willingness to engage in more sustainable practices.

For Council, it’s important we lead by example for our community. We’ve improved our waste sorting and support FOGO at work. Council has also donated workwear to a youth employment service, and recycled 127kg of other textiles and over 7,000 disposable coffee cups in our workplaces.

These efforts are part of our broader, ongoing strategy to positively shift attitudes and behaviours in the community towards a more sustainable future for this great City.

Learn more at penrith.city/waste

Cr Todd Carney
Mayor of Penrith

Information contained within this news release was correct as at Wednesday, 5 November 2025.