Goya Dmytryshchak
A petition containing 1120 signatures is calling for the reinstatement of a weekly garbage collection in Hobsons Bay.
It comes as the council declares it sought medical advice on whether current fortnightly collection pose a coronavirus risk.
In February, the council cut garbage collections from weekly to fortnightly under a new four-bin recycling system.
The petition states, “We believe the removal of the weekly general rubbish waste collection is both inadequate and unsatisfactory, and should not have been done without widespread community consultation and engagement.“
Lead petitioner and Hobsons Bay Talking Garbage group founder, Amanda Hill said residents understood the need to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and were not against the introduction of bins for green waste and glass.
However, she said residents were concerned about overflowing garbage bins and hygiene.
“I’d prefer to put out my 120 litre bin with two bags of rubbish in it a week than my 120 litre bin overflowing every fortnight,“ Ms Hill said.
She said that with the existing yellow recycling bins not taking plastic codes 3-7 and UHT/Tetra-Paks, more items were going in the garbage bins.
The petition was tabled at last week’s council meeting, at which Councillor Sandra Wilson asked sustainable communities director Penelope Winslade if the council had “received any advice around hygiene issues relating to rubbish and the fortnightly collection and particularly in light of the pandemic situation that we are in.“
Ms Winslade replied the council had “sought medical advice and reviewed the most current research that’s available on COVID-19 from the US Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention] and this suggests that there’s no difference in risk between a weekly or a fortnightly garbage collection“.
“The virus does stay alive outside the body for different periods of time on different materials but it continues to decay – it doesn’t decay, it doesn’t sort of breed inside a garbage bag,“ Ms Winslade said.
At the start of April, the council introduced an interim rubbish drop-off service for residents at its operations centre on Saturdays “to support households that may generate higher volumes of household waste due to working from home or self isolating“.
A council spokesperson said advice from the state government and the Chief Medical Officer has confirmed that council waste drop-offs (including the Hobsons Bay interim drop-off) are deemed an essential service in the state of emergency.
RUBBISH PICK UP QUESTIONED
Three Hobsons Bay councillors have publicly expressed concerns about cutting the municipality’s garbage collection to a fortnightly service.
It comes as a petition signed by 1120 people calls for the reinstatement of a weekly collection.
Cr Peter Hemphill told last week’s council meeting the system was being reviewed.
“I’ve made it clear from the start that I’m not quite sure whether we got the general waste collection right,” he said.
“But until you have a few months of the collection, it’s hard to work out whether we did get it right or whether it needs further tweaking.”
Cr Jonathon Marsden said the council’s decision not to accept plastic codes 3-7 in the recycling bins and residents’ confinement to their households due to the coronavirus pandemic had resulted in fuller garbage bins.
“I hope as a result of this petition we look closely at accelerating the rollout of larger bins for those households that need it.”
Cr Tony Briffa, who did not attend the meeting due to health risks associated with COVID-19, said the council should increase the capacity of the general waste collection.
“Given the feedback … I do not believe the standard general waste collection service is enough.”
The council will consider a report on the petition at a future meeting.
