Accelerating South Australia’s transition to a circular economy
LGA has made a formal submission (PDF 732.0 KB) to Green Industries SA’s draft Accelerating SA’s transition to a circular economy: South Australian Waste Strategy 2025–2030, which outlines how we can reduce waste and make better use of materials through reuse, repair and recycling.
Informed by feedback from SA councils, the submission welcomes the strategy’s focus on reducing waste, increasing recycling and building a more circular future.
It also identifies opportunities to strengthen the sector's implementation by ensuring councils are well-supported to drive local action in their communities and deliver practical, place-based solutions.
Our recommendations
Key recommendations include:
- clearer priorities – to support actions that have the greater impact
- stronger funding support – to enable long-term investment in new infrastructure, services and equipment
- tailored solutions for regions – recognising that service needs differ between urban, regional and rural areas
- legislative changes – to support innovation and flexibility to try new approaches.
Our submission supports separate circular economy targets outlined in the draft strategy, as they reflect the need to cater for region-specific differences.
What this means for councils
Councils play a big part in managing waste resources, from collecting bins to running landfills and recycling facilities.
Many of the actions that will shift the dial in SA are outside the scope of local government and are in the hands of consumers, product developers and designers.
To realise the strategy's ambitions, councils need supportive funding frameworks and collaboration, solution-focused partnership with other levels of government.
How councils are already leading
Councils across South Australia are already taking steps to help reduce waste in their communities. This includes:
- running education campaigns to help people reduce, reuse and recycle better
- trialling new bin systems to reduce the amount of food waste sent to landfill
- building circular hubs where communities can borrow or repair items
- using recycled materials in council buildings and roads.
Councils are also supporting events and activities like repair cafés, community composting, and libraries of things – all great ways to cut waste by reusing and recycling materials.
Next steps
The state government will now review all feedback on the draft strategy.
The final version is expected to be released later this year and made available on the Green Industries SA website.
Find out more
Information about the South Australian Waste Strategy 2025-2030 is available on the YourSAy website.
Councils wishing to learn more about LGA’s submission can contact Senior Policy Officer Brianna McGee.
For media enquiries, contact media@lga.sa.gov.au or call 0476 853 689.