Avoiding sending all of Ipswich's recycling into landfill would cost the average ratepayer an extra 59¢ per week.
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Faced with having to pay a recycling contractor an extra $2 million, which Ipswich City Council warned would lead to a 1.5 to 2 per cent rate rise, it decided to divert all yellow top rubbish into landfill.
At last year's Ipswich budget, the council said the average residential property would pay $1538.83 annually in 2017-18.
A 2 per cent rise to continue recycling would add $30.78 per year, or 59¢ per week, to the bill.
It would be likely Ipswich residents would also face a separate rate rise in this year's budget due to an increase in CPI, meaning the total rate rise could have been closer to 5 per cent.
Last year, Ipswich's average residential property rate rise was 2.95 per cent.
The weekly Ipswich garbage service currently attracts an annual fee of $346, while a $44 enviroplan levy goes towards bushland aquisition, seminars and education.
The Ipswich council has blamed the situation on China's decision to no longer take Australia's recycling waste, in addition to high rates of "contamination", or non-recyclables being put in yellow lid bins.
In February, Fairfax Media reported council rates in Victoria were likely to rise by 1.1 and 2.5 per cent as a result of China's ban, on top of a 2.25 per cent state-mandated maximum rate rise.
Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Ipswich Mayor Andrew Antoniolli said the rate hike would be "an extra few dollars per week".
Asked if Ipswich residents would be willing to pay extra in order to continue the recycling program, Cr Antoniolli said the council was at a "crossroads".
"If we continue recycling at a cost, it is unsustainable in its current form, we will be at this crossroads again some time in the future," he said.
"Whether we do this now or not, we will be faced with the same decision again in the future because the cost of recycling is going to continue to go through the roof.
"We need to ensure we protect our ratepayers from the ongoing cost increases because they're not going to go down in recycling, they're going to go up at a much larger rate than any other inflation."
Cr Antoniolli said if people wanted Ipswich to continue recycling, there needed to be education to bring the "contamination rate" down from 52 per cent to less than 25 per cent.
"At the moment, the industry is rejecting our recyclables because it cannot get down to a sustainable contamination rate," he said.
"If they're not accepting it, it's going to landfill."
Cr Antoniolli said the contamination rate was increasing due to the "China crisis".
"People are reading about it, they're learning about it, and they have a lack of faith in how recycling is going to be handled," he said.
Cr Antoniolli said his city had not ruled out recycling.
"We do respect recycling, we do thank everybody who has been quite diligent at recycling, but that is not the solution going forward," he said.
Brisbane, Moreton Bay, Logan, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast councils have so far ruled out making any changes to their recycling programs.
But Local Government Association of Queensland chief executive Greg Hallam said other councils would likely follow Ipswich's lead, after being faced with four- to five-fold cost increases for recycling.
