About Swanbank and New Chum
The Department of Environment, Science and Innovation regulates environmental activities which can generate odour and impact on surrounding communities.
There are several landfills and composting sites within the Swanbank and New Chum industrial areas which are known sources of odour.
The department has been investigating and responding to concerns raised by the community about odours, dust, and other environmental nuisance in and around these areas for several years.
The number of community reports typically increase during the warmer months with increased rainfall and temperature both contributing factors.
The department has noticed a shift since investigations commenced, with the majority of odour reports received in 2022 having been due to rainfall and odour generated in the north around New Chum. Odour reports in 2023 and 2024 are much more concentrated to the south around Swanbank. For a comparison of the odour reporting for these years see the heat maps in the resources section below.
The map below identifies the Swanbank and New Chum industrial areas, the immediate surrounding and potentially impacted suburbs within 2.5km, 5km and 7.5km radius.
For more information on those regulated sites within this area please see locations of waste sites.
History
In 2018, the department commissioned an independent market research consultancy to investigate the communities experience of odour issues across the wider Ipswich area. Read the Key findings or the full Community research report .
Following this, a dedicated Odour Abatement Taskforce (OAT) was established. The taskforce provided additional on-ground presence and response to information reports from the public, plus proactive face-to-face engagement with local communities. It also worked to examine and review current industry regulation and practice against contemporary standards, introducing new technologies to monitor air, noise and water quality.
Enforcement actions have been issued to operators found to be in breach of their environmental obligations.
Warning notices and fines are a substantial deterrent and prevent most offences from reoccurring.
A range of other enforcement actions are available to deal with more serious offences, with formal charges raised for odour nuisances against one operator.
For more details about past monitoring and investigations see past programs.
If you would like to see the enforcement actions issued to any site, you can search the Public Register Portal using the individual licence holder in the ‘issued to’ field. Alternatively, you can search using the postcode ‘4306’ for Swanbank or ‘4303’ for New Chum.