‘A Fight Cleaning Up’: Community Perseveres After Floods Dump 60,000 Tonnes of Waste

A small business owner is calling on authorities to boost preparedness for natural disaster events.

A car sits submerged in flood water along the banks of the Manning River in Taree in New South Wales north of Sydney in Australia on May 23, 2025. Record floods cut a destructive path through eastern Australia on May 23, caking houses in silt, washing out roads and separating 50,000 people from help. Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images

After record-breaking floods devastated parts of the New South Wales (NSW) Mid North Coast and Hunter regions, local business owner Matt Stone says the clean-up has been a daily battle, with his shop “totally ruined.”

The event in the Mid North Coast and Hunter regions left behind huge piles of rotting debris, with landfill sites created to manage the rubbish.