IT'S been a long time coming but kerbside recycling will finally be a reality for households in the Whitsundays.

That is, as long as you already have a weekly wheelie bin service and at a potential cost of $140 per ratepayer, per year.

The decision to introduce kerbside recycling from mid-November was passed unanimously at this morning's Whitsunday Regional Council meeting in Proserpine and met with a round of applause.

Proserpine councillor John Collins was first to speak to the motion, saying he'd been approached by quite a few people concerned about the increase to rates they'd incur.

More recently, however, others had told him they realised it was common sense and would ultimately cost less than landfill cells at the council dumps.

"I was leaning towards voting against it but I'm going to be supporting it today due to that influx of people in the last two weeks,” he said.

Airlie Beach councillor Jan Clifford said living in a predominantly tourist area she regularly heard from people all over Australia and in fact the world who could not believe there was no kerbside recycling in the Whitsundays.

But Bowen councillor Mike Brunker said despite not wanting to "put a dud moment on this” it wouldn't actually reduce the Whitsundays' carbon footprint.

"I support kerbside recycling, simply for the fact it's a 'warm and fuzzy' and simply for the fact that people do expect us to do this ... but with our lack of population and with our geographical area, we have to cart all of our recyclables to Mackay, so we will have a contribution probably of more CO2 to the environment than what we do now,” he said.

Mayor Andrew Willcox said he had promised to introduce kerbside recycling as part of his election campaign and believed it was "long overdue”.

"It costs council more than $1 million to build a new landfill cell, so if we can prolong that ... we actually save money,” he said.

"I think it's a good thing for the Whitsundays - we have our iconic brand name, we're associated with the Great Barrier Reef, we're associated with green, pristine living and I think it's long overdue.”

Cr Brunker said education would need to be an important part of implementing kerbside recycling, pointing to the failure of split bins trialled in Bowen a decade ago.

"We need the public to now back us up and do the right thing once we implement it,” he said.

Cr Willcox said there would be a communication strategy and agreed with Cr Clifford's idea that information stalls to explain what you could and couldn't recycle would be a positive move.

Cr Collins said he'd recently spoken to someone from Mackay who told him they were experiencing such a high volume of recycling in their community that "it should be vice versa - the recycling should be once a week and the normal rubbish once a fortnight”.

"If that happens up here, we'll certainly be able to prolong the life of our landfill,” Cr Willcox replied.

Cannonvale councillor Ron Petterson said for a council to be able to do something like this just one year into their term deserved praise.

"We're taking the steps to make sure we do the right thing for the environment and I think it's high time we took the public on the journey with us,” he said.

Cr Willcox said more than 75% of participants interviewed across the region last year said kerbside recycling was their number-one priority.

He said the council estimated it would be able to divert about 5000 tonnes of household waste from the landfills each year "once the service gets up to speed”.

He also said the council would explore all options for rolling out the new service to more remote areas over time.

Residents will notice a new charge on their rates bill from January 2018.

The charge will go towards bins and paying for collection and transport.

Collections will take place on the same day as current general waste bins are emptied.

Each resident will receive a new 240-litre wheelie bin with a yellow lid.