Attachment 5 - Traffic Impact Assessment Final PTT · 132005.638.06

3                                   Masterplanning layout by area

3.1                                 Transfer station

3.1.1                               Current operation
In the weighbridge data, the movements of mixed waste from offsite to RRA1 captures waste to both the
public transfer station and the bulk transfer station (recovery pad), without identification of final sorting
location. There is a mix of vehicle types using the public small waste transfer station area and the bulk
transfer station. Anecdotally, and observed during site visits, there are only ever two of the three transfer
bays open at any time to ensure an empty bay is available while skips are full at a bay and unavailable for
further filling until replaced with empty skips. Cars, and cars towing trailers are directed to the public transfer
station bays by the weighbridge, all other vehicle types are diverted to the bulk waste transfer area in RRA1.
During site visits, other vehicles including utility vehicles were observed using the transfer station bays.
The portion of cars and cars towing trailers using the public transfer bays was 1559 in the November 2023,
approximately one third of all vehicles to transfer areas (32.2%), the majority of vehicles are larger (67.8%)
and access the bulk transfer bay in RRA1. During weekends, there is a higher frequency of cars and cars
towing trailers over the weighbridge accessing the public transfer bays, refer to Table 10. The maximum
number of cars and cars towing trailers in an hourly period from November 2023 was 15, but the highest
frequency of occurrence was 6 vehicles per hour. These vehicles were using the three bays in the public
transfer area for waste category MM Rubbish (not smaller areas within the transfer area e.g. batteries,
chemicals, e-waste, paint, Minoil, etc.). During site visits it was also raised that weekend traffic volumes were
higher than weekday, occasionally resulting in queuing into Eumundi-Noosa Road.
Due to variable ability and experience of drivers accessing the transfer station bays, difficulty in manoeuvring
vehicles into individual bays was observed during site visits and also noted as an ongoing issue by NSC
operators. Vehicles without trailers were seen to manoeuvre quicker and with improved ease in and out of
bays, but were delayed by manoeuvring of vehicles towing trailers. The current layout of the transfer station
for cars and cars towing trailers requires operator and public traversing of the roadway access to bays to
deposit paints, LPG gas bottles, batteries, and other waste. Pedestrian movements through roadways and
vehicles access presents a safety for both public users of the transfer station and operators which will be
removed where possible in the Masterplanning process.
Under the current process, there is limited sorting of general waste at the transfer and bulk bays by public
and commercial users of the transfer station observed by NSC and WMC operators. This results in a greater
quantity of recyclable materials entering the general waste stream via 30m3 containers at the transfer bays
and also observed in bulk dumped waste at the bulk bay. There is also limited opportunity or area with the
current site arrangement to empty 30m3 containers for further sorting, or to undertake sorting at the bulk bay
while maintaining access for waste drop-off.

                               45
                               40
                                                                         42
                                                                   39
  Frequency of Occurrence in




                               35
                                                       36
                               30                            34
       November 2023




                               25                29                               29
                               20          24
                               15
                                                                                           16
                               10                                                                   13       14
                                5    8                                                                                5        4        4       2        1
                                0
                                     0     1     2      3     4     5     6    7      8      9               10      11       12       13       14      15
                                                                           Number of vehicles


Figure 2                            Hourly vehicle access of transfer areas
                                                                              Project number 526384 File Noosa Masterplanning Report 2025-02-07 Revision 0   12