By Goya Dmytryshchak
Hobsons Bay residents will soon be able to pay for a second annual hard rubbish collection as the council battles illegally dumped rubbish that’s costing about $400,000 a year.
The council currently offers one free hard rubbish collection per financial year.
Last week’s council meeting heard the council would trial a second user-pays service next financial year.
Strategic development acting director Kathleen McClusky told the meeting that residents would be charged a fee that was cheaper than taking rubbish to the closest tip.
“At this point we will be working out a flat rate,” she said. “We will ensure that it’s cheaper than taking a car load to the Wyndham landfill.”
An average trailer load of rubbish taken to the Wyndham landfill costs $60-$104 dollars.
Ms McClusky said during the trial, the council would be monitoring whether less rubbish was being illegally dumped.
Hobsons Bay mayor Jonathon Marsden said illegally dumped rubbish was costing ratepayers about $400,000 a year for the council to clean up.
“We maintain a database of dumped rubbish hot spots, which helps us with our monitoring, but ultimately it comes down to people taking responsibility for their own waste,” he said.
“Most people do the right thing but a small number consider our public open spaces and their nature strip to be places where they can dump their unwanted items, often large objects that could have easily been collected through council’s hard waste service.”
The council also runs annual electronic waste and household chemical collections.
Hard waste collections can be booked by calling the council on 9932 1000.
