RATEPAYERS could soon have their unwanted bulky waste picked up, as council considers reinstating the service as part of its public consultation on waste management.
It follows local Kathryn Fleming questioning why her Wagga rates were significantly higher than those attached to her Hunters Hill property, despite the affluent inner-Sydney suburb offering free council bulky waste pick-up.
“In Sydney they get two council pick-ups a year, in Wagga they give us a free tip day,” she told the Advertiser yesterday.
It’s an issue Wagga City Councillor and Greens candidate, Kevin Poynter, wants addressed.
“Waste management is an important issue,” he said.
“My understanding is council discontinued (the service) because of safety and other similar reasons, but are having a look at it and how we manage the entire waste system.
“In my view, we need to look at minimising waste as much as we can.”
Council earlier this year introduced Tipping Point, a campaign to encourage community input on the future of waste services.
Council currently provides kerbside waste services to around 23,000 properties in the Local Government Area of Wagga, Oura, Mangoplah, Ladysmith and Tarcutta.
Council collected items weighing a total of 100kg from the kerbs of urban household at a designated time, but it was discontinued in 2011 due to reasons relating to health and safety.
A council spokesman said four free tip days have since been implemented to allow for the disposal of certain materials that would otherwise not normally be able to be disposed of through the normal kerbside waste service.
But council is now considering reinstating the annual kerbside bulky waste collection as a pre-booked service that addresses the health and safety concerns associated with bulky waste collection.
Comments made to the online public forum, comprising some of the 3500 community surveys already submitted, are largely in favour of council reinstating the service because free tip days clashed with other commitments, some residents have no access to trailers and it created problems for outlying residents.
The council spokesman said additional options for consideration in council’s Tipping Point surveys include the proposed annual bulky waste collection service, continuing free tip days in lieu of a bulky waste collection service, or introducing a voucher system so that each householder can take a certain number of rubbish loads to the Gregadoo Waste Management Centre for free.
Legal advice has been sought for the development of new contracts for a kerbside waste contract.
While Cr Poynter acknowledged bulky waste dominated community feedback, another issue being considered was expanding the scope of green waste to include household food waste.
