By Molly Magennis
Hobsons Bay’s Councillor Briffa has raised concerns about fortnightly green waste collection, despite voting for the collection change last year.
In a council meeting on February 8, during the Councillor Questions section, Cr Briffa asked for an update on FOGO (food organics and garden organics) collection, and when council could consider weekly collection instead of fortnightly.
“I’ve spoken with a lot of residents…particularly over summer, they need weekly FOGO,” Cr Briffa said.
In response, Acting Director Matthew Irving said changing FOGO collection service to weekly would come with financial impacts to council as indicated by modeling carried out last year.
“Taking consideration that the changes have occurred recently which are working relatively well and the previous financial modeling indicating a significant cost increase to council, officers would not be recommending an introduction to weekly FOGO collection at this stage,” he said.
In June last year, councillors Daria Kellander, Tony Briffa, Diana Grima and Matt Tyler voted to change the regular garbage collection back to weekly and the green bin collection to fortnightly.
The bin collection schedule has been a contentious issue with residents ever since.
Cr Briffa said the principle change she voted for was the return of weekly general rubbish collection. She said she wanted FOGO to remain as a weekly service, although that wasn’t an option at the time.
“I think it is reasonable to expect both general rubbish and green waste/FOGO to be collected weekly. I am still working to return green waste collection to a weekly service.”
