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As ratepayers in Western Australia's biggest regional city continue to pay millions to have waste trucked to alternative sites, managers of the local landfill site say it may never reopen.
The state government's regulator effectively shut down the Stanley Road tip, around 200km south of Perth on Bunbury's outskirts, in March 2022 after raising concerns about the "unacceptable" risk to human and environmental health from full and unlined cells.
The site, run by the Bunbury Harvey Regional Council (BHRC), takes in some rubbish to sort and process, but there is no landfill.
Two years on, BHRC Chief Executive Officer Nick Edwards has confirmed that the future of the site is still unclear.
"Whether or not we have a landfill ourselves on our site and whether that's the best idea for us, that question is yet to be answered," he said.
Bunbury Harvey Regional Council CEO Nick Edwards says it's possible Stanley Road landfill may never reopen. (ABC South West: Jacqueline Lynch)
"We can either reopen the landfill and build a new lined landfill facility … [or] we have also got ideas that we're exploring, for example, a waste innovation hub.
"We're looking at a range of options that will provide the best value for money for the residents and ratepayers of the South West."
'Nobody wants it'
The South West has been looking for an alternative waste site for years, but previous plans for landfill in Dardanup and Capel fell through.
Mr Edwards said it was tricky to find a suitable area.
"There's a lot fewer areas that you can put a landfill … nobody wants to build a house near them or nobody wants it near them," he said.
"So we're looking at innovative ways to get around that. What else can we do with our waste? How do we keep it out of landfill?"
Currently, rubbish is being trucked to a facility in Dardanup, where residents have raised concerns in the past about expanding waste operations.
The tip at Stanley Road was all but shut down in mid-2022 after concerns about run-off from unlined cells. (ABC South West: Georgia Loney)
Costs continue for ratepayers
Ratepayers have had to foot the bill for waste to be trucked away from the site and for the Stanley Road site to be made safe.
This year, the City of Bunbury and the Shire of Harvey are expected to chip in a combined $1.8 million to keep the Bunbury Harvey Regional Council's operations going.
That's on top of millions in payments and loans already given to the tip operator in recent years.
Liberal MP Steve Thomas says the waste situation in the South West is reaching "crisis point". (ABC News: Bridget McArthur)
Liberal MP Steve Thomas said it was time for the state government to intervene.
"I'd like the state government to drive and fund an entire South West waste solution," Dr Thomas said.
"I know that will be expensive but ultimately that is, in my view, the only solution."
He admitted the solution could cost up to $100 million, but said the region needed certainty going forward.
"This is now coming to a crisis point," he said.
"Ratepayers ... need to be assured that the contribution that they're making goes to a genuine and real solution into the future and right now basically ratepayers are paying for bandaids just to paper over the cracks.
"It's an issue we have been talking about for at least 20 years. These local councils don't have the capacity to fix this problem."
He stopped short of promising funding on behalf of the WA Liberal Party.
In a statement, the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation said a decision on whether to construct and operate the approved new landfill cell was a decision for the Bunbury Harvey Regional Council.