By Goya Dmytryshchak
Hobsons Bay council on Tuesday night voted 4-2, with one councillor abstaining, to reinstate a weekly garbage collection.
As reported by Star Weekly yesterday, a council officers’ recommendation to offer a free bin upsize to all residents was overridden by a motion moved by deputy mayor Daria Kellander to restore the weekly rubbish collection, cut the green bin collection to fortnightly and trial compostable paper bags for food organics and garden organics (FOGO) bins.
Six of the seven councillors, with the exception of mayor Jonathon Marsden who chaired the meeting, gave their reasons for voting in favour, against or abstaining.
Cr Matt Tyler, who voted in favour, said when cost was removed from the equation most residents surveyed by the council wanted a weekly garbage collection.
“Approximately half of the over 5000 residents who responded to the online survey are not satisfied with the frequency of general rubbish collection and beyond volume pressures the major problem for residents is the smell created by garbage that’s sitting for two weeks – understandable given many households disposing of dirty nappies and also have pets,” he said.
“Given the findings I’ve shared, it’s no surprise that when survey respondents were asked to choose between a number of options – to upsize the bin or increase the frequency of one bin when costs were not included – the most popular option for both the online survey and telephone survey was ‘return a weekly garbage collection’.
“Cr Pamela Sutton-Legaud, who voted against, said she did not believe the majority of the community would rather the convenience of their bin collected weekly versus fighting the tide of rubbish.
“It was clear from the research, to me, that – and I quote – even from the online survey, 50 per cent of respondents were very satisfied, somewhat satisfied or neutral about the frequency of rubbish collection and 71 per cent of the random survey (which we’ve heard is the more statistically appropriate) were very satisfied, somewhat satisfied or neutral about rubbish collection,” she said.
“This does not prove to me in any way that a weekly collection is necessary.”
Cr Sutton-Laugaud unsuccessfully moved an amendment to keep green bin collection weekly, expressing concern people would put FOGO into the garbage.
Cr Peter Hemphill, who unsuccessfully sought to defer the motion and abstained on voting, expressed concern about the costs and outcomes.
“I think the much better way would have been to defer this motion to allow the officers to go and work on finding out some of these unknowns because I have a fear that we’re going to saddle our ratepayers with a lot of extra costs because, seriously, we do not know where this is all going to land,” he said.
“There are also issues such as contracts with providers and that will possibly be a cost in negotiating them.
“I’m very concerned about the extra cost and what that might do in the longer term because in the end the waste charges get directly levied back to individual households and separated out from the general rate increase and we can charge more than the 1.5 per cent [current rate cap] to recoup our costs.”
Cr Diana Grima, who voted in favour, said she had seen an increase of dumped rubbish after the weekly garbage collection was cut.
“… I can’t turn a blind eye to that and that’s why I support this,” she said.
“… I want to see change but until we actually fix the problem and not cost the ratepayers more money for dumping rubbish – and, you know, we’ve had cameras set up, we’ve had all these programs set up; it’s still costing the ratepayers.”
Cr Tony Briffa, who voted for, said it had always been a “tall ask” for residents to have a 120 litre rubbish bin collected every fortnight.
“I thought that was beyond the minimum level and didn’t meet the needs of most residents,” she said.
“All along I’ve been saying, well, at the very least there needs to be 240 litres collected fortnightly and everyone who needs an upsize should get an upsize.
“I’m glad that we had this review, I’m glad that we had this discussion but you know what … the time for this ongoing debate and discussion and argy bargy between people on diametrically opposed sides, and the nastiness that I’ve seen on Facebook and other places … people have spoken.
“I also know lots of residents that love -I’ll call it a FOGO bin but let’s face it, I’m talking about – the green waste bin.
“For me it’s about, what is the minimum service that will meet the needs of residents, and on that basis I will support this motion.”
Mayor Jonathon Marsden, who chaired the meeting, voted against the motion but didn’t speak on the issue.
