Goya Dmytryshchak
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Hobsons Bay’s garbage bin collection will return to a weekly service, a councillor majority voted tonight.
A council officers’ recommendation to offer a free bin upsize to all residents was overridden by a motion moved by deputy mayor Daria Kellander.
Her motion was 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.
“I have to admit that I was actually surprised to see the offering of 240 litre bins … to all households as a solution to the problem,” she said.
“When you promote something as free and make it available to everyone without an immediate cost, residents will take it.
“So, I believe the uptake could exceed 80 per cent, easily, and if that happens the capital cost of $370,000 … could blow out to over $1 million or more, and operating costs would also increase in line with that.
“To add to this, I personally don’t want to go down the path of buying, manufacturing and distributing an estimated 10,000 bins based on the 40 per cent uptake … plus disposing of the current 120 litre bins as they’re returned.”
She said reverting FOGO bin collection to fortnightly from weekly would help offset costs.
“The reality … is that food organics only make up 2-6 per cent in our FOGO bins at the moment,” Cr Kellander said.
Councillors Kellander, Tony Briffa, Matt Tyler and Diana Grima voted for the motion.
Mayor Jonathon Marsden and Cr Pamela Sutton-Legaud voted against.
Cr Peter Hemphill abstained from voting, having earlier said there was too much uncertainty about costs to ratepayers.
The council last year introduced Recycling 2.0.
lt cut the weekly garbage collection to fortnightly and introduced a four-bin system to separate general waste, mixed recyclables, glass, and food and green waste.
