The City of Sydney estimated resident population for 2020 is 248,736, with a population density of 9,308 persons/km².

In 2016, 47.7% of people in City of Sydney were born overseas, compared with 36.7% in Greater Sydney.

The Leave Nothing to Waste: Managing Resources in the City of Sydney Area – Waste Strategy and Action Plan 2017-2030 sets the foundation for waste management in the City of Sydney area. The City is working to achieve its zero waste target by 2030, with a focus on waste avoidance, reuse and better recycling. Six priority areas have been identified to achieve this target:

• promote innovation to avoid waste
• improve recycling outcomes
• sustainable design
• clean and clear streets
• better data management
• future treatment solutions.

  To reduce the amount of materials going to landfill, the City supported and promoted the Paving the Way program, as a member of the South Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (SSROC).

Projects

Return and Earn machines have been installed in Kings Cross and Sydney Park as easy access points for the public to deposit eligible drink containers.

The City of Sydney has been progressively installing new litter bins across the council. A total of 650 new litter bins is expected to be installed by May 2022 to help keep our streets clean.

The council promotes waste avoidance such as coffee cups, single use policy to reduce litter in the public domain.

City rangers conducted regular inspections and targeted patrols in the public domain to address illegal dumping, discarded cigarette butts, littering and other activities. In 2019 there were 871 penalties issued for deposit litter excluding from vehicles and 44 for deposit litter from vehicles. During Covid-19 restrictions in 2020, resources were diverted and used to monitor and provide an educational approach in parks on safe social distancing.

The City of Sydney sponsored Seaside Scavenge to run a litter clean-up and education event at Redfern Park on the 29th of January 2022. The event attracted 68 scavengers, 78% of which had never attended a litter clean-up before (Seaside Scavenge 2022). Together they collected 42kg of waste and 36kg of recycling which were sorted and catalogued with the Australian Marine Debris Database. The litter that scavengers collected was also used as a currency in a pop-up market to purchase pre-loved clothes and goods that have been donated by the local community.

The City of Sydney provides support for Clean Up Australia Day events and has provided funding to install multiple SeaBins in Sydney Harbour to capture marine litter.

To reduce the amount of materials going to landfill, the City supported and promoted the Paving the Way program, as a member of the South Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (SSROC). The program focuses on using glass fines (crushed glass) instead of virgin sand for building roads and footpaths. This will increase the amount of collected glass that can be recycled from 65 per cent to 79 per cent, the equivalent of nearly 100 million glass containers each year.

The City is partnering with Plastic Oceans Australasia to deliver a Primary School Waste Avoidance Program to engage with the school community about waste avoidance. The program is focused on engaging students directly, as well as their teachers, parents and guardians. Program facilitators provide guidance to student-lead teams to help eliminate single-use plastics and improve school waste processes, such as repurposing and recycling. From January to June 2020, in school terms 1 and 2, 14 local primary schools opted-in to the program and 261 students, and their teachers, engaged in 12 workshops to form student led groups to tackle single use plastics in their schools and to learn about waste avoidance and alternatives to single use items. Activities will continue in terms 3 and 4.

Litterati is a global initiative with the mission of creating a litter-free world. Individuals are empowered to geotag photos of litter they find on the streets and upload the data to the Litterati app to make the litter problem measurable. Industries and government bodies can easily access the database to identify patterns around what lies on the streets, playgrounds and beaches, and inform countering measures and strategies.

Hotspots

Train stations such as Circular Quay ferry terminals, Wynyard, Central.