Greater Dandenong council is hoping to combat this scenario with a new at-call collection service.By Shaun Inguanzo
GREATER Dandenong residents could collectively pay $200,000 more next financial year for a hard waste collection system another council has declared a failure.
But council officers say it is an option that is both affordable and accessible to residents.
The City of Greater Dandenong 2006-07 draft budget was placed on public exhibition this week and, as reported in Star last week, the allocated cost of hard waste collection has risen.
Last year’s heavily criticised annual hard waste collection cost $197,000, but this year an at-call service will be introduced and pumped with $506,000 in a bid by council to prevent hard waste remaining dumped on nature strips for weeks. The service will cost residents an extra $15 extra on top of their rates bill.
The system will allow residents to call council twice a year and book in a collection time.
Each pickup will allow for one regular trailer-load of hard waste to be collected.
But the new system is set to arrive in Greater Dandenong just as Cardinia Shire is about to dump its at-call service.
Cardinia’s Port Ward councillor Doug Hamilton said confused residents dumped their hard waste when they saw their neighbours doing so – and it was not collected.
“Imagine there are two people living next door to one another. Joe does the right thing and rings the shire, books in his collection and puts his waste out. But Bill down the road sees the rubbish and thinks we are doing a pickup, so he puts his waste out and it is not booked in. Contractors will not pick it up unless it is booked in, so it just sits there,” he said.
Cr Hamilton said the at-call service was considered a failure by Cardinia Shire Council.
“We had a fairly thorough debate on it what way we should go, and the absolute consensus was that we should go to a tip voucher system and give it a try because, quite frankly, everyone agreed the other system did not work.”
The tip voucher system involved council sending vouchers with rate notices, and residents taking their rubbish – the equivalent of two trailer loads – to their local landfill, he said.
Greater Dandenong engineering services director Tim Tamlin said council was aware it would face similar problems but was keen to combat it with an educational campaign.
He said other options included a skip-bin system, but that could have cost more than $1 million. Council officers also considered a tip voucher system like Cardinia’s, but foresaw problems with residents accessing landfills to dump waste.
“The voucher system is not available to all residents. If you have not got a car, how do you get a trailer to use the vouchers? Whereas this service is available to all residents,” he said.
