Green Waste Removal in Cairns
The council's free periods do not cover a contractor's load. Here is what that means
Cairns Regional Council runs four free green waste periods a year, nine days each, across its Portsmith, Smithfield, Gordonvale and Babinda transfer stations. It is a genuinely good scheme, and there is one line in it worth knowing before you book anyone: normal disposal rates still apply to green waste brought in by garden maintenance contractors on behalf of residents. So a contractor's load is never free, whatever the calendar says. Trisim removes green waste across Cairns and quotes the job before starting, disposal included.
- Veteran-Owned
- Fully Insured
- Police-Checked
- Local & Reliable
Green waste and garden rubbish removed from properties across Cairns, with the disposal cost quoted in rather than added afterwards.
Why Trisim Property Maintenance for green waste removal
Done right the first time.
There are two honest ways to get green waste off a Cairns property, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing.
The first is to do it yourself during a free period. Cairns Regional Council offers four free green waste windows a year, each running nine days across two weekends, with 2026 dates of 14 to 22 February, 16 to 24 May, 15 to 23 August and 14 to 22 November. The four transfer stations at Portsmith, Smithfield, Gordonvale and Babinda are open seven days from 8:30am to 5:15pm, and between them process more than 40,000 tonnes of self-hauled material a year, recovering as much as 72% of it. If you have a trailer, the time, and your timing lines up with one of those nine-day windows, that is the cheapest route and we will say so.
The second is to have it removed. This is where the detail matters. The council's free offer covers domestic cars, utilities and trailers up to 4.5 tonnes GVM, and it states plainly that normal rates apply to the disposal of green waste from garden maintenance contractors on behalf of residents. A contractor cannot use the free window on your behalf. Anyone quoting you a removal on the basis that the tip is free that week is either mistaken or hoping you will not check.
So removal is priced work, and the honest version of that price includes the disposal. What you are buying is the trailer, the loading, the trip and the gate fee, minus your Saturday.
There is a third option that avoids the question entirely, at least for lawn clippings. Mulch mowing cuts the clippings fine and returns them to the root zone, so there is no clipping removal cost at all, the clippings act as a free natural fertiliser, and the soil holds moisture better. It does not help with prunings, palm fronds or a storm cleanup, but it does mean a fortnightly mow never generates a load to dispose of in the first place. In a climate that averages 2,025.5mm of rain a year and drives growth hard, that is a meaningful ongoing saving rather than a marginal one.
For the loads that do have to go, scale is the variable. A prune fills a trailer. A yard let go for a season is a different job: one Trisim posted clearing ran eight hours and produced many tarp loads of grass.
How we look after your place
The pile has been sitting there since the last big prune
Getting rid of it needs a trailer, a free Saturday and a trip to Portsmith, Smithfield, Gordonvale or Babinda. Most people have two of the three.
A green waste pile in a Cairns wet season stops being garden waste and starts being habitat.
We load and take it, and the disposal is inside the quote rather than added at the end.
Someone quoted a removal as cheap because the tip is free that week
The four free green waste periods are well publicised, and the exclusion is one line down the page.
Council states that normal rates apply to green waste from garden maintenance contractors on behalf of residents, so the free window does not apply to a contractor's load and the saving does not exist.
We price the disposal properly and tell you the free dates so you can compare doing it yourself.
Every mow generates another bag of clippings to get rid of
Catcher mowing takes the clippings off the lawn, which means they have to go somewhere.
It is a recurring disposal cost on a fortnightly cycle, and in this climate the growth does not slow down much.
Mulch mowing cuts the clippings fine and returns them to the root zone, so there is no removal cost, the clippings feed the lawn, and the soil holds moisture.
The load is bigger than one trailer
An overgrown yard, a storm, or a serious prune produces far more volume than people expect.
A half-removed pile is not a finished job, and a second trip is a second cost if it was not quoted.
We look at the volume before quoting. One posted Trisim clearing job ran eight hours and produced many tarp loads of grass, so large jobs are familiar rather than a surprise.
You would rather it did not just go to landfill
Since January 2025 the Portsmith site has run as a bulk waste transfer facility rather than a composting facility, after a fire linked to hazardous materials, and kerbside waste now goes to landfill on the Atherton Tablelands.
Green waste kept in the green waste stream is recovered rather than buried, and the transfer stations recover as much as 72% of self-hauled material.
Green waste goes in as green waste, separated from general rubbish, so it enters the stream that gets recovered.
The work that keeps a Cairns property looking its best
Green Waste Removal
Loaded and taken away, with disposal quoted in. Council rates apply to contractor loads even during free periods, so the price is honest about that.
Storm and Prune Cleanups
Palm fronds, prunings and storm debris cleared from the property rather than stacked at the kerb.
Overgrown Yard Clearing
Large-volume work. One posted Trisim job ran eight hours and produced many tarp loads of grass.
Mulch Mowing
The way to avoid the problem entirely on lawn clippings: cut fine, returned to the root zone, no removal cost.
A Cairns team you can trust with the keys
Trisim Property Maintenance is a veteran-owned family business run by Trina and Simon with a team of five to ten, working across Cairns since 2021 under ABN 24 306 689 336, carrying public liability insurance and with a police-checked team. The business runs from Parramatta Park and travels to the property, serving property managers, real estate agents, landlords, vendors and tenants. For removal work the promise that matters is the pricing one: Trisim states that it only does quoted work, so the disposal is inside the number you agree rather than a variable added once the trailer is weighed. Hours are Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm.
Common questions from Cairns residents
No. Cairns Regional Council's free green waste offer covers domestic cars, utilities and trailers up to 4.5 tonnes GVM, and states that normal rates apply to the disposal of green waste from garden maintenance contractors on behalf of residents. So the free window is for you taking your own waste, not for a contractor taking it for you. If someone quotes a removal cheaply on the basis that the tip is free that week, that is worth questioning.
Four times a year, nine days each across two weekends. The 2026 dates are 14 to 22 February, 16 to 24 May, 15 to 23 August and 14 to 22 November, at the Portsmith, Smithfield, Gordonvale and Babinda transfer stations. Those stations are open seven days from 8:30am to 5:15pm. If you have a trailer and the timing works, that is the cheapest way to move a load and we will tell you so.
Into the transfer station network. Cairns Regional Council runs four transfer stations, at Portsmith, Smithfield, Gordonvale and Babinda, which together process more than 40,000 tonnes of self-hauled material a year and recover as much as 72% of it. Keeping green waste separated from general rubbish is what keeps it in the recovery stream, which matters more since the Portsmith composting facility stopped operating after a fire in January 2025.
Change the mowing method. Mulch mowing cuts clippings fine enough that they fall straight back to the grass roots, so there is nothing to remove, the clippings act as a free natural fertiliser, and the soil retains moisture better. It will not help with prunings or palm fronds, but it takes the recurring fortnightly load out of the equation entirely, which in a climate averaging 2,025.5mm of rain a year is worth real money over a season.
We look at the load and quote the job. Trisim states its promise as only doing quoted work so there are no surprises, which for removal means the disposal cost sits inside the number rather than appearing afterwards. Volume is the main variable, so a photo of the pile is usually enough for us to give you a real figure rather than a range.
Guides that go deeper
Talk to the Trisim team
The fastest way to get a price is a phone call. If you would rather write it down, use the form below and include the property address so we can size the job before we call you back.
- Phone
- 0488 622 205
- Based in
- Parramatta Park, Cairns QLD 4870
- Servicing
- Cairns and Far North Queensland
- Hours
- Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm
Trisim is a mobile service. We are based in Parramatta Park, servicing all of Cairns, so there is no shopfront to visit, but we come to you anywhere across Cairns.
Tell us about your place
Send through a few details and we will get back to you with a quote. Prefer to talk? Call 0488 622 205.
- Veteran-Owned
- Fully Insured
- Police-Checked
- Local & Reliable
Need green waste removal?
Send us a photo of the pile and we will quote the removal with disposal included, or tell you if one of the council's free periods would suit you better.