KTC released its 2021-2026 Waste Management Strategy on Tuesday, in which it committed nearly $19 million to replace the town's landfill and ruled out introducing kerbside recycling due to high costs and a lack of community support to pay for it.

In a statement, KTC said it worked to gather feedback and community views for the new strategy from October 13 to November 10 2020.

Feedback was received through eight stakeholder meetings, two online surveys which received 166 responses, four information displays which attracted 56 people, two written submissions, 11 emails and five phone calls.

This totals 248 individual cases of feedback being delivered to KTC from residents on what they wanted waste management to look like.

From this KTC saw "over 90 per cent support to increase recycling" but "strong resistance to increasing charges to fund improvements".

This resistance to higher rates as well as a $15 million price tag for a new recycling sorting centre was the reason behind KTC's decision to reject kerbside recycling according to the council.

The Katherine Times ran its own online poll on Wednesday and received contrasting results to the council's survey.

Although our poll had less time and responses, closing after one day with 83 participants, 51.8 per cent of them said they were in favour of paying more money to KTC for a kerbside recycling service.

48.2 per cent said they did not want to pay.

KTC claims its efforts to get feedback covered nearly 10 per cent of all Katherine households and is happy with the extent of the community consultation.

"[10 per cent of households] is considered reasonable in a general population survey," council said in a statement.

"The council believes a variety of voices were heard regarding the community's opinion on waste in Katherine.

"Council is satisfied with the level of community feedback and utilised 10 different communication channels to provide opportunities for feedback."

The Katherine Times received several comments on social media about KTC's decision to rule out a new kerbside recycling service.

"For that amount for a new dump you would think kerbside recycling would be included," said one commenter.

Another reader was more disgruntled with how the money is being spent on waste products and made their feelings known.

"This is absolutely disgusting," they said.

"No kerbside recycling but yet building another great hole in the ground to dispose of waste and an 11 year plan to implement recycling and waste sorting."

The Katherine Times also hit the streets to ask people if they would pay more rates for recycling.

Long-term resident Anita, who did not wish to give her surname, said she would pay increased waste charges for kerbside recycling.

"I reckon I would... what would I do with [recyclable waste] otherwise?" she said.

She said her friends in Katherine collect large boxes of recycling but struggle to dispose of it all at once.

Tony Heenan thinks recycling in Katherine is "inevitable" and would pay KTC to provide kerbside recycling.

He said previous anti-waste measures had "cleaned up" the Northern Territory.

"You see what happened when they banned (single-use) plastic bags," he said.

Mr Heenan said he would happily pay a small fee of five to ten dollars a month for kerbside recycling.

While there is no kerbside recycling in Katherine, there are some grassroots projects repurposing Katherine's waste including the local Girl Guides.

The group are partnered with national organisations such as TerraCycle and Planet Ark, and provide a small-scale solution for some wanting residents.

Girl Guides leader Tracey Ramm said they have noticed high demand for recycling services in Katherine.

"Anecdotally I feel lots of people have said 'this is really great'," she said.

Ms Ramm said an education program would have to be rolled out with any future kerbside recycling because some people do not understand how to correctly dispose of recyclable materials.

"People put the wrong things in the bins... we get people dropping off things that we haven't asked for or aren't on the list," she said.

"That's going to happen with any program though."

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